Death Becomes Her
by Ravyne and Katt B
Summary: Something cold comes over Kat and then a sharp pain burns her alive from the inside out. Screaming bloody murder, she hits her knees, wrapping her arms tightly around her body, and hunches over in a feeble attempt to protect herself from the internal assault ripping her apart. "KAT!" Rick's voice distantly screams for her. AWAKEN!...THE HUNT BEGINS! (*R&R* *COMPLETE!*)
1. Prologue

_Hello, again, fellow readers. We have awakened..._

 _Okay, well, no we haven't. We've just been gone for quite a bit of time. During that time, I decided to take a break from writing and drawing and just watch a movie. Well, that movie ended up turning into a binge watch of the entire series and I just fell in love with the movies all over again. So much so that I started binge writing and...as you can see...I've finished a fanfiction of my choice for once. Woohoo!_

 _Hope you enjoy! Please read and review if you have a moment...I'm uploading the whole thing...yeah._

 _-Ravyne_

 _(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Prologue:**

 _Thebes—city of the living._

 _Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti the first._

 _Home of Imhotep, Pharaoh's high priest, keeper of the dead._

 _Birthplace of Anck-su-namun, Pharaoh's mistress—no other man was allowed to touch her._

 _But for their love, they were willing to risk life itself._

 _That's how all this started right? Love? What does it even mean? What is it? Is it even real? Is it just a simple emotion or a true envelopment of the heart? Is it born of free will or is it just another bind of life?_

 _No._

 _It's a curse._

 _It brought the downfall of so many lives; some guilty and some angry…but also an innocent. And it was that innocent life that was charged with a burden so heavy that it crushed all of the heart and destroyed any chance of ever feeling love again._

 _She didn't have a choice._

 _Because of Imhotep's betrayal, his choice to slaughter the Pharaoh, it cost him more than he ever knew. At least at the time. When the Madjai, Pharaoh's sacred bodyguards, intercepted Imhotep at Hamunaptra during his ritual to revive his dead love, they sentenced him with the curse of the Hom Dai. Even with the high priest buried deep under the city, the gods feared that the curse would be brought to life._

 _Someday, someone would find the city. Someone was going to dig too deep. Someone was going to be much too curious for their own good and they would reawaken Imhotep from his death and release the curse on the world._

 _To stop that from happening, they ordered the Madjai to bring to them a life, a life that would soon take its own place out of the living world. A young woman, drowned in grief over Imhotep's betrayal, who wanted nothing more to do with the world she resided in._

 _She was named after an Egyptian god at birth because she was gifted with eyes that shone like burning emeralds. And yet those burning emeralds were drowned in tears that would rival the floods of the Nile that night as she raised the knife above her chest. Yet her hand was stopped by the Madjai who came for her and dragger her away to the top of a mountain where the moonlight could bathe her in its pale glow._

 _She was given no choice when the gods appeared before her where she was bound. She had no choice when they stole her free breath from her and brought her body to the darkness. She had no choice when they refashioned her into their weapon._

 _Anubis fashioned her a heart that would be strong enough to carry out her task._

 _Horus fashioned her a mind that would lead her on the straight path of protecting the world at all cost._

 _Seth fashioned her body with a touch of chaos so that she would hold all the knowledge of war._

 _Isis fashioned her a soul of ice that would hold no longing for worldly things except for the desire to protect mankind._

 _All these gifts made her into the perfect guardian, the perfect weapon to destroy Imhotep should he arise. And yet, it was the god she was named after that came forth with the most important gift. The gift that returned the fire to those dead emerald eyes and gave her the strength to move and to fight._

 _This goddess is the one who breathed life back into the young woman's body and bound her into their service._

 _It was that night that Bastet returned to the world of the living._

 _But no longer as herself._

 _This time…she was a slave of war._

 _And she wanted revenge._


	2. Chapter 1

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 1:**

The phone rings once, the sound echoing throughout each other the dark rooms of the silent house. The heavy curtains are drawn over the windows to block out any sunlight from brightening the apartment at all cost.

The phone rings again.

Again.

Again.

A bundle of blankets across the single wide bed in the furthest room of the house twitches and groans as it stretches. The roll of thick bedspreads lifts high into the air and then drops away, revealing a bare arm with a single bracelet of thick leather around the slender wrist.

Again the phone rings, beckoning the sleeping form to wake and answer it. The rest of the blankets lift and fall away from the body of a young woman with dark brown hair that falls in a wild mess to her mid back. The phone's annoying ringing calls for her again another time and she groans angrily as she pushes herself off the bed and towards her doorway.

Somehow, through the fogginess of her mind and the darkness of the hallways, she finds her way to the small table in the living room and picks up the old phone that sits on top.

"Someone better be dead," her groggy voice snarls into the receiver.

"Well, well. Nice to hear from you too sunshine. You still wasting your days away sleeping?"

Her eyes shoot open wide the second she hears the voice and she fights the smile pulls at the corner of her mouth, "You know I've always been a night owl. That's when I get my best work done. Where have you been? I haven't heard from you in three years. I thought you were dead?"

"Uh…it's a long story but the short version is that I just got out of jail," the male voice answers.

She raises an eyebrow in amusement, "Again?"

Even through the phone she can practically hear him roll his eyes, "Look, as much as I want to catch up, I really need to talk to you about a…little trip I'm about to head out on. I could really use your help."

"Wow," she scoffs teasingly as she sits down into the big lounge chair, crossing her legs over the arm of the cushion as she grins, "Big brother Rick is actually askin' for help?"

"Don't go gettin' a big head, Kat."

"Why not call one of your other many explorer friends to help you out?"

"Because none of my other many explorer friends are free and I thought a nice family trip would be nice."

Kat chuckles as she brushes out a fold in the blanket that lies out over the back of the chair she sits in lazily, "A family trip, huh? What, you need help carrying the umbrella or picking out the hotel?"

There's a pause; a long pause. Kat's eyes narrow a bit and her smile falls ever so slightly in confusion. Rick finally answers, "Well, only if the umbrella happens to be suitcases belonging to a brother and sister and the hotel happens to be Hamunaptra."

For a second, Kat's blood runs cold and she waits to see if her brother is truly joking, but when she hears no sign of laughter or scoff she slams the receiver back down on the base and lifts herself out of the chair to head back to bed.

The phone rings again, sending her anger skyrocketing through the roof. How dare he ask this of her! How dare he even consider!

Kat reaches for the phone and rips it up, screaming her piece before he can even try and defend his case, "Forget it, Rick. I'm not doing it. I'm not going with you, I'm not going back there, I'm not-."

"We're gettin' paid," Rick stop her.

Kat bolts straight up like a rod and her voice lowers an octave, "How much?"

* * *

The bustling port filled with the noisy crowd is one thing but the driving sun is another; both are bugging her to no end. She glances down at the slip of paper in her fingers where she had written down the ship name and dock number her brother had told her to meet him at. She would've gotten there by now if the crowd hadn't been this crazy. Twice she's tried to maneuver her way around a couple of English born people walking much too slow for her liking and twice she's failed because of a fish cart or luggage buggy blocking her way. So she's forced to follow behind them about ten feet or so just so it wouldn't appear like she was following them.

Englishmen always made her nervous, another reason why she's listening in on their conversation so intently.

The man, obviously no gentlemen seeing as he's forcing his wife to carry the bags, walks with a weird gate that was much too shifty as if he were ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. The woman, dressed in proper English attire for a young lady, struggles under the weight of the bags as she keeps pace beside her husband stiffly.

"Do you really think he's going to show up?" the English woman asks.

"Yes, undoubtedly, knowing my luck," her husband replies. "He may be a cowboy but I know the breed."

Kat shakes her head. Cowboy? No proper Englishmen would be caught dead knowing an American. How did this lot come about it?

"Well, personally, I think he's filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel—I don't like him one bit," the wife argues.

Kat looks up just as another body cuts across her path. She's about to tell him to trample off and learn some manners but then she recognizes the face. No amount of lessons could ever get this man to learn some manners. She grins as she stops just behind his shoulder out of sight, taking note at how tall he is. They've been separated for three years, she's totally forgotten how much taller he is than her.

"Anyone I know?" Rick asks, interrupting their conversation.

The couple spins around to face him, the husband backing away a few extra inches and the wife fumbling with the luggage as she sets it down by her feet at the sight of him. Her eyes take him in in surprise, giving his outfit a look over and a slight blush crossing her cheeks.

Kat fights back a grin. That's her brother for you; always making the ladies swoon whether they be married or not.

"Oh, um…hello…" the wife finally gets out.

The husband chuckles and plasters on a huge grin, patting Rick on the chest in a friendly gesture before shaking his hand rather too eagerly, "Smashing day to start our adventure, ay, O'Connell?"

Rick eyes the man warily, "Yeah. Yes, smashing." He lifts the side of his jacket and checks to make sure something is there but Kat can't be sure what. What on earth had transpired between the two that would make her brother so cagey?

"Oh," the Englishman chuckles, "No, no! I don't steal from a partner, partner."

"Steal? You let an Englishman pick your pockets, Rick? Wow, you really are losing your touch," Kat cuts in. They all turn to her, Rick swallowing her up in a tight bear hug in which she returns just as warmly before they meet the gaze of the husband and wife. She's not really sure what she would call them but Kat doesn't want to seem rude so she forces on a polite smile and spits out the first nice word that would come to mind, "So who's the…lovely couple?"

"Couple?" the husband chokes out, glancing at his companion.

"Oh, no!" the woman corrects quickly, "This is my brother, Jonathon Carnahan. I'm Evelyn Carnahan. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Kat nods as politely as she can before glancing at her brother. "So these are the siblings you told me about."

"Yeah."

"And you two want to go…to…" Kat glances around uneasily, not really wanting to say the word out loud, lest someone with the wrong set of ears heard them, so instead she lowers her voice. "Hamunaptra?"

"Why yes," Evelyn replies with a lot more enthusiasm than Kat expected.

She raises her eyebrows at the woman, silently wondering just how much insanity was brewing inside the small Englishwoman's form, "Okay. So where's my money?"

"I beg your pardon?" the woman's eyes widen to the size of saucers.

Rick places a hand on Kat's shoulder and starts to stumble out some kind of excuse but she cuts him off, "Rick, don't tell me you lied to me. Again."

"We're getting paid…" he nods, trailing off.

"Just not until after we're dead," Kat finishes.

"Oh, you two. This silly belief in this superstition is outrageous. Now, shall we kindly take our places on board?" the small woman puffs up with what Kat believes is no doubt nothing but pure stubbornness before grabbing hold of the luggage at her feet and spinning around towards the boat.

Kat looks to her brother, lifting her eyebrows in shock, silently asking him if this woman is serious.

He nods, "Yeah."

"Well, this should be interesting," Kat sighs as she shifts her large bag over her shoulder, a similar duffle bag to her brother's; both acquired in their times spent in the French Legion.

As they make their way towards the boat, some short, stout man appears in front of them wearing a red hat.

"Good morning to all," the man greets half-heartedly. Even from her place behind the English siblings, Kat has to fight hard not to pinch her nose against the smell coming off the new comer.

"Oh, no, what are you doing here?" Evelyn complains.

The man turns to head up the ramp to board the boat as he calls over his shoulder, "I'm here to protect my investment. Thank you very much."

Kat leans between Evelyn and Rick, pointing after the man, "I'm sure that's a very interesting story that I definitely want to hear about later, but I must know: is that smelly…man really coming with us?"

"Unfortunately," Evelyn sighs.

"Yeah…then you're payin' me double," Kat states before squeezing between the two and heading up the ramp to board.

Rick, shifts his bag on his back with a heavy sigh, "Just ignore her. My sister joined the French Legion with me against my consent and it, uh…well… Our visit to Hamunaptra wasn't a pleasant one." He motions up after his sister as he tries to explain her behavior.

"Yes, I see," Evelyn nods in understanding.


	3. Chapter 2

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 2:**

By nightfall, everyone had settled in to their rooms on the boat and decided to take a turn about the deck. Rick had insisted that Kat share a room with Evelyn and it allowed the two young women a chance to get to know each other better.

"So, why did you decide to join the military?" Evelyn inquires, turning a page of her book. The night air is cool and comfortable so they decided to take a seat at a table along the railing of the deck.

Kat pauses in her effort to polish a knife blade to glance at the woman, "You really want to know?"

"Well, of course I do or I wouldn't be asking."

"Sorry," Kat holds up her hands in defense, "I just didn't expect you to be so curious. Well, my brother and I were orphaned at young ages so the need to stick together was installed really deep. It's how we were able to take care of each other. Although, growing up on the streets wasn't exactly the kind of life any kid should have even with the orphanage roof to shelter us; I got into a lot of trouble that my brother had to rescue me from and for a long time I saw him as my hero. When he up and joined the Legion, I was shocked beyond measure. Here he was going into the fights and I couldn't be with him. I didn't want him going into a fight with no one there to guard his back as he had guarded mine growing up…so I joined—followed after him. Sadly, I had to learn a lifestyle that no proper young woman should know, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Now, I can get myself out of my own fights and not have to worry about my brother worrying over me."

A heavy bag drops loudly onto their table right over Kat's assortment of knives and both of the women jump in surprise.

"Yeah, now I just have to worry about you getting into fights on purpose because of your temper," Rick cuts in, throwing her a look. He turns to Evie who is still sitting stunned in her seat and grins sheepishly, "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"The only thing that scares me, Mr. O'Connell, are your manners," Evelyn shoots back.

Kat bites back a smile, impressed with the woman's backbone.

"Still angry about that kiss, huh?" Rick asks. Kat glances quickly between them curiously.

"Well, if you call that a kiss."

 _What?_ , Kat thinks to herself.

Rick responds only to unroll his weapons case and reveals his own assortment of weapons, ranging from mostly guns and a few knives.

Evelyne looks the collection over warily as Rick takes the outside seat on the other side of the table next to his sister, "You and your sister seem to be under some sort of impression that we're going into battle."

"Lady, there's something out there—something underneath that sand," Rick replies as he pulls out the first gun to check over.

"Yep," Kat nods, recalling her memories of the accursed place.

"Yes, well," Evelyn starts, "I'm hoping to find a certain artifact. A book actually."

 _Not surprised. She seems like the library sort_ , Kat thinks.

Evelyn continues, "My brother thinks there's treasure. W-what do you think is out there?" She reaches out, finally giving into the curiosity, and fingers one of Rick's weapons as the siblings continue about their routine of cleaning their weapons.

"In a word? Evil."

Kat nods quietly at her brother's description of what they had experienced at Hamunaptra. The strange noises that sounded eerily like voices, the sand moving as it were alive, the wind howling like banshees at random times; the place wasn't meant to be found. There are some things that should just remain buried.

"….the book of Amun-Ra."

Kate tunes back into the conversation, the familiar sound of the Egyptian language tugging at her ears. She's never understood the ancient speech but for some reason she's always loved the singsong sound of it.

"It contains within it all the secret incantations of the Old Kingdom. It's what first interested me in Egypt when I was a child. It's why I came here; sort of a life's pursuit," Evelyn explains, her eyes shining as she spoke.

"And the fact that they say it's made of pure gold makes no never mind to you? Right?" Rick raises an eyebrow as he runs a cloth over the gun in his hand.

"You know your history," Evelyn's eyes shine brighter.

"I know my treasure," he corrects, giving the gun a twist as it clicks.

Kat scoffs to herself, recalling all the times she and her brother had pick pocketed the pockets of random people sometimes just so he could study the different coins from the tourists that came to town. She had made him return them of course…sometimes.

"By the way…"

Kat and Rick both look up at the librarian as her voice lowers, shaking nervously.

"W-why did you kiss me?"

Rick lets out a good laugh as he returns to cleaning his gun, "I was about to be hanged, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Kat facepalms herself. Evelyn's face bunches up angrily as a frustrated blush paints her cheeks. She tears to her feet and storms off away from them, her heels clicking into the wood deck.

Rick looks up, completely obliviously as to what's going on, "What?"

Kat sighs as she rubs a hand over her face at her brother's stupidity, "Rick, there's a reason as to why you're still single and I have no nieces or nephews." She smacks him across the back of his head before standing up and going after the woman.

"What'd I say?!" he calls after her.

Not sure exactly where Evie had gone, Kat goes around the deck past the stables where the camels and horses are being housed and down to the other side of the boat. Before she can round the corner, she slips on something wet and nearly goes down if she wouldn't have had the railing to grab onto. Turning a glare to her feet, she spots the water and stops.

The water puddles aren't just puddles; they form the shapes of boot prints. And that much water doesn't come from someone's spilled drink. She follows them with her eyes back in the direction they had come from but she's unable to find exactly where so she decides to follow them to where they're going. As she comes around the corner-.

"Whoa!" Kat ducks as a blade comes at her head and embeds into the wood frame of the corner. Luckily, it takes her attacker, a man clad in black robes, an extra moment to dig the sword free and she uses that moment to grab him by the front of his clothes and toss him towards the railing. He slams gut first into the railing and topples just a bit, enough for Kat to grab his ankles and finish flipping him over the side. He screams as he goes over and she leans into the railing just in time to see him splash into the dark waters below.

When she straightens back up to turn and scream out of the attack, she comes face to face with another man in dark robes; this one taller than the last and with darker skin. She hadn't expected him to be standing right there in her face. His eyes are an impossible dark brown and they do not look friendly.

It's not until a second later that she registers the feel of the curved blade pressing at the back of her exposed neck. She rolls her eyes. How could she have left herself open like that?!

Putting on a fake smile she raises her hands and turns ever so slowly to face him, feeling the cold blade trace a cold line across her skin from back to side as she does, "Hey, can't we talk about this like civil-?"

He moves in a flash, the blade disappearing for only a second so that he can grab her and throw her back against the wall away from the railing and then return it to her neck right under her chin. The sharp blade presses in deeper this time and she winces; any deeper and it'll draw blood.

"Or not," she chokes out.

Because of the black cloak across his face, she's unable to make out who he is but that doesn't stop him from hissing through the fabric in a low, demanding voice. His accent is deep and the language his speaks is foreign to her ears.

When she doesn't answer, he shoves her hard into the wall and demands again for whatever he's asking. Kat grinds her teeth angrily, fiddling along her pants leg to loosen the clip holding her knife safely in its sheath, "Would you…kindly…speak English?!"

His eyes narrow as he digs the blade firmer against her throat and Kat uses that instant to jerk the knife out of the holster on her outer thigh and slam the end of the hilt against the side of his cloaked head. He cries out and stumbles away, giving her just enough time to pull out her other knife and ready herself for his next attack.

When he stands back up to his full height, his gaze is alight with new determination and he flips the curved sword in his hand threateningly, saying something in his foreign language once more.

Kat flips her daggers in a similar fashion, narrowing her glare, "Same to you…whatever you said."

He rushes her, she rushes him, and their blades meet in midair; steel on steel, the clashing sounds echo across the deck of the ship around them. She blocks his attack and he does the same to hers. Their dance continues until she drops low and kicks his legs out from under him. Leaping up, she quickly goes to pin him down, one leg on either side of his body, and she raises her knife to deliver the final blow.

Aim right for the heart. It'll be quick.

A gunshot is fired and the knife flies out of her hand with a loud _clang_. She whips her head to the left and finds another man in black aiming a rifle at her head for another shot. Kat hurls her other knife at him and it zips through the air silently before embedding into his chest and knocking him to the ground. However, this leaves her torso wide open for attack and the man under her shoves her off balance and pins her under him instead, clasping her hands to the ground on either side of her head.

"Seriously?!" Kat snarls.

The man lowers his face down close to hers and she can almost feel his breath against her face through the fabric hiding away his identity. He repeats the same thing over again that he had once said before in that foreign language of his only this time with more urgency than before.

For a moment all she can seem to register is the deep sound of his voice and the thick accent he carries but then her mind catches up with her and Kat glares up at him, "English!"

With a sharp kick, she knees him and uses his moment of weakness to shove him off of her. They roll away from each other and Kat stops on one knee, remaining crouched so she can move faster if necessary. He does the same a few paces from her, his glare deepening with each move they make against the other.

They take a small moment to just stare each other down and catch their breath, waiting for the other to make another attack impatiently. That is until the wall beside them explodes into fire and they both duck away to avoid the flames. Kat coughs away the smoke that suddenly engulfs her and waves her hand around blindly in an attempt to find the deck rail.

Her fingers brush smooth, cold steel and she grips it tightly, pulling herself up shakily onto her legs. Breathing heavily, Kat's eyes scan over the flames that spread over the deck where she once was and she finds the guy in black on the other side, gathering himself and standing to his feet as well. The cloth must've fallen away from his face while he was trying to escape the flames and now leaves his identity exposed to the world.

Kat's eyes widen a little in surprise as their gazes lock; he's much younger than what she expected. His dark eyes stand out remarkably well against his dark skin, tanned by the desert sun, but that's not the only thing that catches her attention. It's the marks on his face under his eyes.

The tattoos pull at something at the back of her mind, something she can't recall entirely to her memory. A deep, dark feeling settles in the pit of her stomach. She swallows hard. It's not until that second she realizes that he hasn't looked away either. That is, not until one of the men dressed like him appears out of the smoke behind him and shakes him loose from whatever trance he's under. With one glance back at her, they disappear down the other side of the deck and into the black smoke clouds beyond.

"Kat!"

Kat breaks out of her thoughts as the familiar voice of her brother calls out over the roaring flames. She turns around just as he appears behind her.

"There you are. Come on! We've got to jump!" Rick leads her to the opposite side the boat deck where they had been sitting at the table and they stop at the railing, glancing over into the dark waters below. The sounds of gunfire and screams fill the night air from all around them. "You still know how to swim?"

"Don't make me laugh," she retorts as they climb over the railing together and take the plunge at the same time. The water swallows them whole.

* * *

"We've lost everything!" Evelyn cries as they all stomp, soaking wet from head to toe, out of the river and up onto dry land. "All of our…tools, all the equipment, all my clothes."

"Could be worse," Kat breathes heavily as she finds a low lying boulder to sit on, tipping her boot over so that the water gathered there can spill out onto the sand. "Did you grab my weapons, by chance?"

Rick nods, lifting the two bundles they both own high for one second tiredly before dropping it to the ground.

"O'CONNELL!"

They all look up as a random voice screams at them from the other side of the river. Kat's eyes narrow as she tries to see through the darkness; the whiny, weasel of a voice sound vaguely familiar to her, "Is that Beni?"

"Yeah," Rick answers with a loathing tone.

"HEY!" Beni screams again. "O'Connell! It looks to me like I've got all the horses!"

"Hey, Beni!" Rick screams back with the same sarcastic 'ha-ha' tone, "Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"

A few seconds later, they can hear the frustrated tantrum their former Legion companion is throwing across the dark river from them; Rick and Kat share a victorious grin.

"So what do we do now?" Jonathan inquires as he takes a seat on the ground under a nearby palm tree. Gad Hassan, whom Kat has learned was the warden of the prison her brother was recently released from, does the same with a loud, exhausted grunt.

"We'll keep walking," Rick instructs as he tosses Kat her weapon's bag before pulling his own over his shoulder, "I know a town near here where we can rest up and get some supplies."

"And horses," Kat adds.

"No, horses aren't made for the desert."

She groans, "Please don't say camels! You know I hate camels!"

Rick grins, "Camels."

"Ugh!"


	4. Chapter 3

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 3:**

The town's habitants were very welcoming and helpful when their group entered into the city late that night. They women offered Kat and Evelyn places to sleep in their own tent and then when morning came, they were given new clothes.

Kat of course simply assured them that her own clothes were just fine, so they washed them and dried them for her while the brothers went to search for transportation. She's not too happy about the fact that she'll have to be riding a camel again; the beasts have never liked her very much. However at this point in time, what choice does she have?

"You know, you would like nice in some of these robes," Evelyn states randomly as they are getting dressed in their new or newly cleaned attire.

Kat chuckles from behind the curtain she's dressing behind, "I've never been one to wear something I couldn't move in. No offense but I couldn't fight very well in something like that."

"Well, I know it's not my place to say-."

Kat pulls the curtain aside just far enough for her to raise her eyebrows at the woman, "And so you shouldn't."

Evelyn's sheepish look turns to one of motherly determination, "But I think that as friends we should be honest with one another."

"We're friends?"

"I…would like to think that we are."

Kate pauses half way through pulling her shirt over her head and thinks about it. She's never had many friends that were girls; growing up mostly on the streets and then in the Legion it's not really something that's an everyday occurrence. Thinking about it, though, it would be nice to have someone else to talk to besides her brother. He can be rather overprotective and over bearing at times.

Kat smiles and continues pulling on her shirt, "I'd like that. Thank you."

"Wonderful, then, as your friend, I think you would like lovely in one of these. Maybe a blue or a green," Evelyn remarks.

Kat can hear her new friend beginning to ruffle through the other clothes that the town's women had brought for them and she steps out from behind her curtain to stop her, "Evie, as my friend, I'd have to say no. I'm really fine."

"How will you grab the attention of a man dressed as one?" the woman gawks, motioning towards Kat's dark pants and loose sleeved, white v-neck shirt that she has tucked away at the waist. The shirt is bundled up at her elbows while she has the ends of her pants tucked away into a set of mid-calf high boots.

Kat looks down at herself in confusion, "What's wrong with the way I dress? And who said I was trying to get the attention of any man?!"

"Miss O'Connell-."

"You can call me Kat. Everyone does."

Evie nods, "Every woman should aspire to get a husband at some point in their life."

"I don't need one. At least right now. I'm happy with being on my own."

"But no one should have to face life alone. It's not the way anyone should live. I'm not saying that the way you dress is a problem, it's just-."

Kate raises an eyebrow and finishes her sentence, "Not convenient."

Evie shifts her eyes down to the green fabric in her hands uncomfortably and the room goes quiet for a long time.

"Evie, thank you for your concern, I really do appreciate it, but…if God wants me to have a man in my life, then He'll send me one. But…I don't think that's going to happen for me," Kat smiles after she gathers the courage to speak.

"Of course it will. You are very beautiful in your own right; the right man will notice," Evie smiles with new determination. "Now turn around, I want to try something."

Kat wants to argue, to tell her why she's wrong, but the words just won't come. So instead she takes a seat on the cushioned stool as Evie instructs and allows the woman to pull down her dark brown hair from the usual bun she keeps it in at the back of her head. The entire time that Evie brushes out her hair with the borrowed brushes, Kat closes her eyes and loses herself in her thoughts.

Evie's stubbornness almost rivals her brothers on any given day. She'd make a wonderful mother one day, Kat could already tell that. Her thoughts pull back the memory from the boat, when they had all sat around the table discussing their journey. Evie had gotten so worked up and upset when her brother had dismissed their so-called kiss so casually.

Kat opens her eyes and smiles, _Evie would make an excellent match for her brother. The signs were already there. Maybe she could tame him._

"Evie?"

The woman pauses in her work on Kat's hair and looks up.

Kat chews on the words for a second before deciding on something else, "Thank you."

Evelyn smiles in response, "All done."

Kat smiles as Evie moves her hair around for her to see. Her long hair is now braided up with a piece of green material threaded through it. Evie was right, green does look good on her.

* * *

After meeting at the appointed spot, Rick and Jonathan appear, leading a herd of five, very large camels towards them. Kat tries not to laugh when she spies her brother ogling over Evie's new wears. She's never seen her brother so at a loss for words.

When Evie presents Kat to him, expecting a comment on Kat's new hairdo, Rick just shrugs and drops a set of reigns into his sister's hands. Kat looks up in dread at the darker brown camel with bored eyes, "Let me guess. This one bites and spits more than the others do."

"Just the way you like 'em," Rick teases, nudging her shoulder.

"O'Connell, that is no way to treat your sister!" Evelyn argues in her motherly tone.

"Don't worry about it, Evie," Kat calls to her. "I'll get him back later. He hates snakes."

Evie's eyes widen in alarm.

They all climb onto their respective camels and ride out across the desert. All too soon, the heat starts to beat at them all, forcing them to pull on protective layers over their heads. Twice they've had to rough it out of small sand storms, Kat has had to constantly dodge potential bites from her camel who whips its head back to snap at her heels, and Gad randomly sings loudly and obnoxiously from the back of their herd. It's a long journey, one that Kat begins to recognize the further along they go. Pretty soon, they would be back at the lost city of the dead, facing only God knows what.

As night settles in, they're all forced to try and sleep in their saddles. This is the main thing Kat has been dreading. She's never gotten any sleep like this, no matter how many trips on camels she's been forced to take, it just gets harder to do with each trial. During the night, Rick glances back at her and makes a movement with his fingers—a clear signal that she's seen him make before. Her eyes shift and scan the top of the cliffs off to their left.

Shapes.

Possibly ten men on horseback sit there silently, no doubt watching their every move. Kat narrows her eyes; this she remembers. Back during their last time in Hamunaptra, while trying to escape the city across the desert, she and Rick had spied similar chaps gazing from the tops of cliffs at them. She wonders if these guys are the same ones.

She questions if these are the same guys as the ones she saw sneaking through their camps. Kat hadn't told Rick about it but when their battalion had camped that first night in Hamunaptra, she had woken up briefly and seen a few men cloaked in black, sneaking their way around their troops. At the time, she had just thought it was a dream…until she found the footprints the following morning. The winds had erased them not to long later.

Looking back towards Rick, the tense moment is broken by what she sees. Evie's camel has moved up in their lines, carrying the sleeping woman to Rick's side. She mumbles in her sleep, rocking momentarily against Rick's arm. He gently moves to shift her softly back upright in her saddle before shushing the camels.

Kat chuckles under her breath, glancing thoughtlessly back up at the ridgeline. Her smile vanishes; the shadowy figures on the cliff tops are gone.

Again, a dark feeling settles into her gut.

* * *

"Good morning, my friend."

Rick and Kat pull their camels to a stop first, forcing the rest of their company to do the same behind them. They shoot uneasy smiles at Beni who is approaching them from the opposite direction on a camel of his own; the group he's leading stopping along with them. Rick had filled her in about the other Americans who were looking for Hamunaptra as well and paying Beni to show them the way there.

Kat felt bad for the Americans.

"Hey, Beni," Kat grins at him. The weasel of a man stiffens up and drops his smile at the sight of her, only able to nod a response. She grins wider; he's still scared of her.

"What the hell are we doin'?" one of the cowboy Americans complains as the whole group finally comes to a standstill.

Kat rolls her eyes, tunes out their annoying conversation, and lets her gaze search the ridge line behind them. There aren't any shadowy figures of men on horses to be found…but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. Still watching them.

"Remember our bet, O'Connell: first one to the city."

This perks up Kat's interest and she leans over to hiss low towards her brother, "Bet?"

"Five hundred bucks to whoever enters the city first," Rick whispers back.

Kat mauls over the words for a long moment, "That's it? They do realize this is the 'City of the Dead'…right? I would've bet a thousand."

"Do you have that kind of money on you?" Rick throws her a look.

"Who says I'd lose?" she grins.

Rick glances down at the camel she rides, "Since when can you run a camel?"

Kat looks down, quickly pulling her leg away as her camel turns back to try to bite her ankle again, and her smile all but falls clean to the ground.

Her brother grins at her, "Not so confident anymore, huh?"

"Shut up."

"Hey, O'Connell."

They both turn to Beni's annoying voice again, sharing blank looks.

"Nice camel," the weasel man scoffs.

Kat narrows her eyes, glancing down at the camel Beni sits atop, "Have you not noticed that you're riding one as well?"

Beni sits up straighter in his saddle, "This camel is handpicked and bred from a long line of champion camels. Not some flea from a backwater town."

Kat digs in her pockets for that pretty pebble she had picked up out of the road from that backwater town and tosses it in Beni's direction. It smack his camel on the hind leg just a hair and the beast jumps in a sudden fright, tossing Beni around frantically for a second before he can get his mount back under control.

"Oh, yeah," Kat laughs, "A real thoroughbred."

The skies lighten and Kat can feel herself tense up on instinct; beside her Rick does the same.

"Get ready for it," her brother sighs.

"For what?" Evie inquires.

"We're about to be shown the way," Kat finishes for him.

As the sun rises up over the horizon, it's like a veil melts away, giving way to a blur of colors that slowly sharpen into their destination: Hamunaptra.

"Here we go again," Kat grumbles under her breath. She shifts her eyes left and right, silently wondering why no one has moved to race towards the city, and decides that the whole group must be too struck with awe to go anywhere. All except her brother of course whose expression is more one of worry than awe. "Well, might as well get me some extra cash."

With a slap of her stick against her camel's leg, the beast kicks up the sands as it breaks out into a run across the desert, leaving the rest of the stunned group in the dust.

* * *

"…three hundred…four hundred…and five hundred. Thank you so much boys; it was nice doing business with you," Kat throws them a triumphant, open wide grin as the cowboys dish over their winnings into Evie's awaiting hands. The woman smiles like a little girl who's just won the national spelling bee for the first time and Kat can't help but shake her head.

Even after her head start, Evie had surprised everyone by tearing to the front lines and riding through the front gates of the city first. Winning the bet has put a happy glow around the woman.

Now they are all busy setting up a drop line as a way to enter into the hole they've found in the ground by a towering pillar. At first, Kat wants to question their choice of entry ways but Evie is confident about the location and who in their right mind would argue with a librarian and Egyptian historian?

Rick orders Kat to finish tying off the rope as he grabs something off the ground nearby and heads off into Evie's direction. The woman is busy messing around with an 'ancient Egyptian mirror' as she calls it but she looks up as he comes over to her. Kat fiddles with the rope absentmindedly, letting her muscle memory finish the task at hand while she eavesdrops onto their conversation. Whatever he had said to her, it left Rick with a slight embarrassed blush across his face and a warm, flattered blush across Evie's.

 _Oh, what I wouldn't have gave to have been a fly on their shoulder during that conversation_ , Kat thinks, eyeing the canvas wrap that Evie is unfolding and gazing at longingly.

"Have you finished that yet?" Rick asks, sounding oddly frustrated.

Kat grins slowly at him as she give the rope a final tightening tug, "Feeling a little flustered there…lover-boy?"

Ricks face drops into straight up outrage but Kat giggles and drops her way down into the dark hole before he can spit out anything against her. She swings down the rope, lowering herself to the floor below and then signaling to the rest of the group to head on down. Past the spot of light the hole above allows to enter, she can't see into the darkness beyond. Rick drops down next, flipping out a match and lighting it. The flame flickers to life and he uses it to light a torch. The circle of light widens.

"Do you realize we're standing in a room that no one has entered in over three thousand years?" Evie asks as she, Kat, and Rick gawk silently at the room around them, still mostly hidden in darkness.

"Whew! What is that God awful stench?!" Jonathan complains as he drops to the floor behind them. Not far behind comes Gad, climbing uncomfortably down the rope. Jonathan eyes him thoughtfully, "Oh."

Evie makes her way over to one of the Egyptian mirrors, wipes away the centuries of cobwebs and then turns it up into the light filtering in from above, "And then there was light."

The light beams zigzag from one mirror to another around the room until it fills the space and reveals their location. Kat's eyes widen in astonishment; hadn't she read about a room like this? Somewhere?

"Oh my God. It's-."

"Sah-netjer," Kat breathes.

"Precisely!" Evelyn smiles proudly.

"How'd you know that?" Rick whispers to his sister.

"Read it somewhere…I think," she answers thoughtlessly as she takes another torch and uses Rick's to light it so she can go explore through the room. She passes through a beam of light traveling between two mirrors and the light in the room dim for a fraction of a second. And in that fraction of a second, Kat swears the colors of the dim room blurred into something else.

Their group decides to explore further and they start making their way through the maze of tunnels and hallways beneath the city. Rick takes position at the front of the group, gun drawn and ready, while Kat takes the back of the group with a knife at the ready in one hand and a torch in the other. Every part of her body is screaming at her to run, to escape. It's no mystery that this place is just straight up wrong in every sense of the word.

Suddenly the tunnel is filled with an odd sound, like that of thousands of tiny bats taking off all at once, but nothing appears out of anywhere.

"What the heck was that?" Kat hisses up to the front of the group, feeling every hair on her body standing on end.

"Sounds like…bugs…" Rick whispers back.

"He said bugs!" Evie whispers. Kat bites back a smile the second she hears the teasing note in the woman's voice. The second she says this, Gad begins to flinch in disgust.

"What do you mean bugs?! I hate bugs!"

"Just keep moving," Kat pats his shoulder comfortingly, hiding a grin. They finally all inch into another dark room and come to a stop as they gaze up at the feet of a statue planted firmly on a solid base.

"The legs of Anubis," Evie explains to everyone. Kat and Rick move in cautiously, eyes darting around the room warily, while everyone else goes to the base of the statue where carving and paintings tell an unknown story of times long ago. "The secret compartment should be somewhere inside here."

Out of literally nowhere, groans and moans of an eerie nature fill the room and Rick signals for everyone to get back against the statue base. They hurry to obey and Rick and Kat pass their blazing torches to Evie and Jonathan for safe keeping, tightening their grips on their weapons as they inch side by side to the corner of the stone base. Rick throws a look at his sister and she nods back at his silent signal in response.

They whip out into the open, baring their weapons, and are met with opposing battle cries. The Americans stare back at them, their own firearms cocked and loaded and aimed straight at them. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, their weapons lingering in midair for a tense moment.

"You scared the bejesus out of us, O'Connell," one of the cowboys breathes.

"Likewise," Rick responds, lowering his guns with a tense smile.

"Hey," the glasses wearing Mr. Burns speaks up randomly again, pointing his lantern beam at the tool kit in Evie's hands. "That's my tool kit."

Evie hugs it tighter to her chest.

"No, I don't think so," Rick shoots back and everyone's guns go back up at each other.

Kat shifts her gaze back and forth between the two groups of ego silently in boredom.

Mr. Burns glances uneasily at Rick's guns aimed at his head, "Okay…perhaps I was mistaken." That confession eases everyone a bit and the guns lower.

"Well, have a nice day, gentlemen, we have a lot of work to be getting along with," Evie bids them goodbye.

"Push off!" Dr. Chamberlain, the Egyptologist, snarls, puffing out his chest. "This is our dig site."

"We got here first!" Evie argues defiantly with a stubborn glare.

The guns whip back up. Kat rolls her eyes. If this got any more bloated, they'd be here all day and get nothing done. Kat looks around and finds a nice boulder to lean against until the apes could figure out who was going where. Honestly, she didn't care who ended up in what location; she'd personally prefer to leave before the evil of this place decided to pick any of them off.

When Evie finally step in and breaks up the mess, Kat watches her send a weird look at Rick and he reluctantly gives in. Their group leaves, traveling deeper underground to God knows where.


	5. Chapter 4

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 4:**

"According these hieroglyphics, we're underneath the statue. We should come up right between the legs," Evie announces excitedly as she climbs up onto one of the smaller statues they've moved into the center of the room to use as makeshift ladders. Kat has chosen to stand back and hold the torch so that Jonathan and Rick could handle the pick axe and hammer, using them to bash away at the roof of the room they have come to settle in.

"When those damn yanks go to sleep," Jonathan announces before glancing apologetically at Rick and Kat, "No offense."

"None taken," Rick grunts as he takes another whack at the stone roof.

"We'll dig our way up and steal that book right out from under them," Jonathan finishes.

"Are you sure we can find this secret compartment thing?" Kat inquires as she watches sand and dust spill to the floor.

"Yes, if those beastly Americans haven't beaten us to it…no offense," Evie apologizes.

"None taken," Kat rolls her eyes.

"Hey, where'd our smelly little friend go?"

Kat wonders that too as she looks around for Gad who has conveniently disappeared since the work has started. She scoffs out loud, "Probably found a nice palm tree to take a nap under so he wouldn't have to lift a finger. Want me to go find him and make him take his turn swingin' an axe?"

Rick grunts with another swing at the roof before pausing to glance back over his shoulder at her, "Sounds great. Take a gun."

"I got six knives on me. I think I'm fine," Kat argues as she lights a spare torch for them and heads out of the room.

"Guns are better!"

"Push off!" she shouts back as she disappears down the ancient hall. The tunnels feel much more disturbing now that she's by herself but you won't catch Kat admitting to that to anyone. Even lit up by the torch in her hand, she's sure that the level of evil would still feel the same if she's been fumbling around in the dark.

Coming to a T-intersection, Kat glances both ways curiously before shifting her gaze to the sand beneath her feet to see if there are any signs of tracks he may have left behind. Gad had to have been down this way; there's no way she could've missed him cause the guy hardly took hygiene to heart so the smell should be easy to follow.

"Gad?" Kat calls, hating the way her voice echoes eerily around her. "Gad, you better not have gotten eaten by bugs."

She pauses. Surely he would make some sound of protest since he despises the insects so much. And yet…nothing. Not even a random sound. Her skin crawls and a shudder races down her spine.

"Why'd I volunteer for this again?" she wonders out loud as a sudden chill settles over her. Kat wraps her arms around herself, bringing the flame of her torch closer in an attempt to try and absorb some of the heat radiating off of it. Deciding to start her search to the left, she heads down the hallway and studies the light on the walls as it brings the hieroglyphics carved there to life. The next room she enters has towering pillars all along the edge of the rooms with carvings and paintings of Egyptian people all along the walls. It's not until she's about halfway into the room that Kat realizes the figures are all facing one direction. As if they are facing towards the opposite side of the room where two figures are carved bigger than the rest as if to make them appear more dominate.

One was a man dressed in dark robes with rings on his fingers and what looks like sand coming from his palms. The other was a woman dressed in usual Egyptian attire for a lady only her eyes looked rather strange and there's a long spear in her hands that's pointed directly towards the man's heart.

Kat narrows her eyes in realization: these two are battling each other.

 _Wonder who wins_ , she thinks.

A strange wind from literally nowhere whips towards her and hisses like a demon from behind, making her drop the torch in a panic and draw out her other knife in response. Breathing heavily, Kat's eyes dart around the room for any sort of movement that comes at her but all she's met with are the flickering shadows stirred up by the flame from the torch. The wind and sound vanish leaving her with a thick heavy silence.

She swallows again, "Screw this, I'm gonna need more eyes." Kat quickly makes her way back through the maze to her comrades so she can get some assistance looking for their missing person. Right as she turns the last corner she picks up the sounds of Evie speaking loudly again and Kat quickens her pace.

"Oh! And you know how they took out your brains?" she's asking them.

"Evie, I don't think we need to know this," Jonathan tries to stop her.

"They take a sharp, red-hot poker, stick it up your nose, scramble things about a bit, and then rip it all out through your nostrils."

Rick winces loudly from the description, "That's gotta hurt."

"Well, it's called mummification. You'll be dead when they do this," Evie assures him.

"For the record," Rick spins to Jonathon, "If I don't make it out of here, don't put me down for mummification."

"Likewise," Jonathan agrees.

"Hey, guys, we can discuss burial plots later. I can't find-." Kat is cut off as there's a loud _crack_ , a huge _boom_ , and dust flies up everywhere. Silence follows, only filled by a few coughs from everyone as they try to breathe through the thick dust cloud that settles. There in the middle of the room, sits a huge box all of ten feet long and covered in debris. "What the heck?" Kat coughs as she comes around the side of it next to Jonathan.

"Oh my God. It's a…it's a sarcophagus," Evie answers. She glances up at the gaping hole in the roof from where the coffin fell from and her confusion deepens, "Buried at the base of Anubis. He must've been someone of great importance…or he…did something…very naughty."

Kat leans down to get a better look at the pictures carved onto her side of the coffin and blows some of the thick sand off the top to clear them up, "Like what? Stole from the king?"

Evie shrugs as she pulls out her tool kit on the other side of the box, "Let's find out."

As she and Rick dust off the other side, Kat and Jonathon do the same on her side and try to find some identification of who is inside. More and more hieroglyphics become clearer as they clean off the dust. Kat reaches up to work off the sand over the center of the top and pauses. The picture is of a woman; a woman she's seen before.

It's the same picture as from the other room only this time, instead of the spear, the woman has one arm outstretched in front of her and the other above her head. From each hand, a band like a whip coils out of her finger tips.

 _What the heck does that mean?_ , she squints in confusion.

"Well, who is it?" Jonathan asks his sister as she dusts off a plaque directly on the top next to Kat's hand with a soft brush.

Something she reads there causes the woman to pause, "He that…shall not be named."

Rick and Jonathan share a look before he blows a quick breath over the plaque and the sands shift away to reveal a strangely shaped indention in the center. Rick points at it and narrows his eyes, "This looks like some sort of lock."

"Well, whoever's in here sure wasn't getting out," Jonathan remarks from beside Kat, eyeing the indention curiously.

"Yeah, no kidding. It'll take us a month to crack into this thing without a key."

"A key…"

Everyone looks up as Evie gasps.

"A key! A key! Now, that's what he was talking about!" she turns away from the box to start rummaging around in her other bag for a second.

"W-who was talking about…what?" Rick asks the other two. Jonathan and Kat shrug.

"The man, the man on the barge, the one with the hook, he was looking for a key!" Evie turns back to them with that weird little puzzle box of hers and she hits a switch on it that made it open up into something that looked like a sun.

"Hey, that's mine," Jonathan argues.

"Not anymore," Kat rolls her eyes and watches as Evie sets the puzzle into the indention on the coffin and it fits perfectly. While the others share a victorious look, Kat's eyes fall to the picture of the woman above the plaque again, dying to know if Evie would know anything about it, "Hey, Evie, is this a picture of a woman or it is just a piece of the language-?"

A blood curdling scream shatters through the room and Rick whips out his gun. Kat does the same with her knives and gasps the second she recognizes the sound of the voice.

"That's Gad," she gaps.

With no other words, the group races out of the room and into the maze of tunnels beyond. They only make it a few turns in before they skid to a stop as a crazed Gad comes shoving through their group holding his head as he screams wildly and races away down the hall blindly. He slams head first into the stone wall and falls to the ground.

Not moving again after that.

* * *

"What do you suppose killed him?" Evie wonders out loud later that night around the campfire.

"Did you ever see him eat?" Jonathan scoffs.

"Seems that our American friends had a little misfortune of their own today," Rick comments as he and Kat walk up from their scout trip around the edge of the city. They take a seat around the fire and Kat puts her hands up to warm her palms over the flames. "Three of their diggers were, uh…melted."

"What?!" Evie gasps.

"How?" Jonathan adds.

Kat answers, "Salt acid. Pressurized salt acid. Some kind of ancient booby-trap."

"Maybe this place really is cursed." As if to answer Jonathan's comment, the wind comes hissing to life again randomly, sounding more and more like a demonic voice each time it blows, and it whips around them like cold, icy claws before vanishing just as quickly as it had come. Rick, Jonathan, and Kat all go still and share a worried look.

Evie on the other hand just rolls her eyes, "Oh, for goodness sake, you three!"

"You don't believe in curses, huh?" Rick pokes at the fire as he asks in a slightly teasing tone.

"No, I don't! I believe if I can see it and I can touch it then it's real. That's what I believe."

In answer to her statement, Rick reaches for his rifle and picks it up, cocking it with one hand, "I believe in being prepared."

Jonathan suddenly reaches for the late Gad Hassan's leather pouch and tries to lighten the mood a little with a joking attitude, "Well, let's see what our friend the warden believed in."

As he's rummaging around nosily, Rick and Kat can't help but keep their eyes scanning the shadows around them cautiously, silently wondering if any hidden eyes are watching them still whether they be men on horseback or evil spirits. In this place, you never can tell.

"Agh!" Evie screams in horror, jumping away from her brothers cries, while Rick and Kat point their weapons at him.

"My God, what is it?!" Evie demands.

Jonathon glances at the hand he had jerked out of the bag before going back to rummage through it, "Oh, it's a broken bottle."

Everyone sighs in relief.

"Glenlivet! Twelve years old!" Jonathan grins excitedly as he pulls the cork from the bottle and takes a swig of the alcohol. "Well, he may have been a stinky fellow but he had good taste."

Evie chuckles at her brother, oblivious to the distant sounds building up far away. Rick and Kat pick them up first, going ridged in their seats. Horses whiny and the camels become restless. They both jump to their feet.

"Take this," Rick pushes his rifle into Evie's hand as he glances off at the other camp where the Americans have set up, "Stay here."

"Don't move," Kat adds as she and her brother take off towards the noises.

"No, wait! Wait! Wait for me! Wait!"

"Evie!" Jonathan calls after his sister as she takes off after them, "Excuse me, but didn't they both just say 'stay here'?! Evie!"

Kat ducks under a fallen pillar as her brother leaps over it and then they both circle around the backside of a cluster of standing pillars in a rectangle as they approach the other camp. Shrill war cries fill the air as the men from the boat, dressed in black, come charging into the city on the back of their horses. Kat can't make out how many there are of them through all the chaos but she guesstimates around twenty or so. She and her brother are split up as the Americans race around in an uproar and they are forced to dodge between them to avoid being shot, but Kat finds some higher ground atop a raised platform and leaps off to tackle a man on horseback to the ground. His head hits a stone and he's knocked out cold while Kat rolls to her feet and silently sends up a prayer to God for sparing her the same fate.

A few black clad men race by on horses and swing blades at her head as they pass to which she kindly answers with a well thrown knife to their backs. She's able to retrieve two out of the fallen bodies before moving on, dodging bullets as she goes. Atop another raised platform, Kat gives the battleground a good look over before noticing Evie screaming at a man on horseback riding right at her and firing off a shot from the rifle Rick had given her. The recoil knocks her over backward but she succeeds in killing the man on the horse in the process.

Kat nods, impressed by the woman's dumb luck.

"O'Connell!"

She whips her head around when she hears Jonathan's sudden cry for help and notices a man in black racing after a fleeing Jonathan on horseback. Kat sprints as fast as she can go to the edge of the platform and leaps off, tackling yet another man off his horse. This time though, she isn't lucky enough to have any rocks lying around to break his fall for her. They roll across the ground, easily coiling up into low crouches as they stop.

Kat locks him in her gaze and has to do a double take. The cloth across the man's face has fallen away again; it's the same man that attacked her on the boat. "You again?," she growls.

He unsheathes a deadly looking curved blade from his waist and Kat's eyes widen a little as she glances down at the knife in her hand. It suddenly looks so very small. She swallows the thick lump in the back of her throat.

"Okay," Kat chews her bottom lip as she flips her knife, "Let's do this."

He rushes first and she rolls to the side to dodge. When she stops, she spots a long forgotten sword probably dropped by one of the other horseback men and snatches it up. Kat swings it over her head with both hands and uses it to block the blade he brings down across her back. The blades spark on impact.

"Geez!" she gasps, spinning around to block yet another chain of his attacks left and right until she can get some kind of opening to strike back. He doesn't give her one though; ruthlessly swinging his curved blade with the skill of a master.

She spins quickly to her left, as his blade drops from above and Kat ends up behind him with her back to his. The wind around her suddenly feels heavy, wafting with scents she's unfamiliar with and yet she knows them somewhere deep in the back of her mind. That dark feeling lies heavily in the pit of her stomach again and a pressure flashes against the back of her mind.

As Kat whirls around, lifting her own sword to thrust into his shoulder, something happens.

Something she can't explain.

The wind whisks quickly around her like a gasp and everything vanishes in a flash of sand. When it settles, she's standing in a place filled with golden light like the sun. The room is filled with fine furnishings fit for a king, a throne on the far side of the room, exotic painting all over the walls, plants in gold pots line the room and somewhere she can hear water moving.

It's like she's stepped back in time to the Egypt of old when Pharaoh's ruled with riches beyond measures. Kat blinks in confusion, looking around frantically to try and figure out where the heck she is and how she got here…or, better yet, **how** she got here.

"What the heck…?" Kat breathes.

As she slowly turns towards the open doorway opposite the huge, golden throne covered in jewels, something moves around the corner of the doorway to enter the room. Before she can find out what, Kat can feel the whisper of cold steel along the side of her neck and she's about to jump if not for the fact that instead of being a harsh, 'digging into the skin', kind of feeling, it's more like the blade is brushing across her flesh uncertainly like a whisper. Almost like it's testing the feel of her skin to see if she's alive.

Kat looks down slowly but doesn't see any weapon there at the right side of her neck. Her eyes narrow in bewilderment. She reaches up with her left hand, extends her pointer and middle fingers, and sure enough she can feel the sharp edge of the blade there. Only there's nothing there.

"What…is going on…?" Kat tries to turn around but the blade flashes forward abruptly and an invisible arm lashes around her chest, pulling her back against a body that appears out of nowhere as the golden world vanishes and thrusts her back into the chaotic battleground that has become the camp. "Wha-?!"

Before her, Kat's brother is crouching readily by a fire, holding out a stick of dynamite in his hand with the wick lit threateningly. His eyes are set in a deep glare not at her but something over her shoulder and she quickly looks over her left shoulder to find the guy she had been fighting a moment earlier. She hadn't realized how tall he was until now, standing clearly over six feet tall. His arm holds her hostage around her chest, binding her arms to her sides, and his sword is once again held at her throat.

Kat sighs heavily in annoyance, _How do I constantly keep getting into the situations? This never happens this often with the same guy._ She glances up over her shoulder again at the man, _Though the guys have never been this good looking before_.

Blinking in alarm at her own thoughts, she shakes them away and turns to her brother, realizing fully that he's holding a stick of lit dynamite.

"Uh…Rick," Kat calls, eyes widening at the danger in his hand, "As much as I love the fact that you're….hopefully, trying to rescue me, I thought we agreed that I was going to be the only one allowed to handle the explosives from now on after you nearly blew me up that time in Cairo."

"That was one time," Rick snaps, refusing to take his eyes off her captor.

Kat nods, "Okay, what about that soiree in France a few years before that?"

"That was an accident!"

"And that time in-?"

"Do you really want to have this discussion now?!" he snaps.

"Well, you're the one with the stick of burning dynamite in his hand!" she yells back. "Put it out!"

"Not until he lets you go!" Rick sends his glare back at her captive again, his resolve unwavering.

"No, right now 'cause not everyone here has a death wish!"

"Enough!"

They both jerk in surprise at the man's voice, Kat more than anyone since she feels the suddenness of his breath across her exposed shoulder where her shirt has slid out of place a bit during the battle in camp. There's that scent that's so familiar and yet so foreign again, wafting up around her like an embrace and her mind starts to feel that strange pressure again at the back of her skull. Kat shakes it away before anything weird can happen again.

"I knew you could speak English," she grumbles mostly to herself.

The man doesn't act as if he had heard her as he lowers his blade from her neck but not releasing her right away, " _Yallah!_ We will shed no more blood. But you must leave. Leave this place or die." With that he drops his arm from around her and presses his hand to the small of her back and gives her a small push forward. She stumbles away from him a bit but regains her footing enough to spin around to face him. He's already climbing back into the saddle of his horse that has been returned to him. "You have one day! _Yallah! Nimshi!_ "

With the order given, he and his black cloaked men ride out of camp and leave nothing but a cloud of dust behind in their wake. The night settles back down into silence.

Kat lets out an unsteady breath as she watches them go before turning to her brother. He's still holding the dynamite, fuse still burning down. She quickly snatches it out of his hand and snaps out the wick, throwing him a glare.

"You're insane," she grumbles at him. Rick returns her glare before going over to help Evie back to her feet. Kat watches the gentle exchange they share and fights back a smile. They were going to make a loving couple; she can already see it.

 _I'll have a niece or nephew in no time_ , she thinks to herself. Some of the men from the American side of camp groan from obvious pain and Kat turns to have a look around. A few men are already being sat down so their wounds could be addressed and that has her wondering about the fallen men of the black clad army that had just swept through.

Tribes such as theirs are usually very respectful of their dead; surely they wouldn't leave their people behind. Then again…what if one of them was still alive? Her thoughts travel back to the man she had tackled and had his head hit on a rock. Was he dead or just unconscious as she first thought?

Curious, she goes about finding her knifes and then decides to go on a walk about the camp to find out just how bad the damage is.


	6. Chapter 5

__(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)__

 _ _-Ravyne__

* * *

 ** **Death Becomes Her****

 ** **Chapter 5:****

With the camp noises in the not-so-far distance, Kat walks around the perimeter of the city as she does every night just out of habit. After tonight's attack, she's keeping camp within ear and scream shot just in case she needs to raise an alarm. So far, what she's overheard from the other inhabitants of the camp, they have decided that at night it would be beneficial to combine forces so they could all watch each other's backs.

Honestly, she would rather just keep to her own, but out here in this cursed city, numbers are the key to survival. Every so often, Kat has to skip around a fallen pillar or the ruins of a building, passing under the shadows cast along the sands by the moon hanging low in the sky. It's not yet midnight but it feels almost like it with its calm wind and gentle silence. The whole world is settling down to sleep around them.

Which is what she should be doing…if she weren't so keyed up by tonight's attack on the camp. There's a good chance she won't be sleeping at all knowing that those horsemen were out there watching their every move, readying to pounce on them again when the time came. Of course, that would be in exactly twenty four hours; that's all the time they gave them to pack up camp and leave before they, quote, 'all die'. No doubt horrible deaths.

Twenty four hours. That was plenty of time to get out of here and Kat would love to do just that, but with her brother quickly becoming infatuated with Evie, who absolutely loved being able to explore Hamunaptra, it would only get harder for him to see reason in leaving.

Though on the other hand, she's happy that he's found someone he could be infatuated with. And yet, on the other hand, she would like for them to both survive long enough for Kat to be able to get a niece or nephew out of the deal.

Sighing, Kat stops and stares up at the moon above her; she's always loved the night but for some reason she's hated the moon. It's always seemed so cold and void. Lifeless and unfeeling. She tears her eyes away when a light pressure begins to form at the back of her skull randomly and Kat grumbles under her breath as she reaches back to rub the back of her head.

 _ _Did I hit my head during the fight without my knowledge or something?__ , she wonders. The pressure slowly dies away just as she passes out from under the shadow of a free standing pillar at the corner of a ruined platform and out of nowhere a hand shoots out and wraps over her mouth from behind before she can raise an alarm.

Struggling to free herself from her captor, Kat goes still when a low voice hisses in her ear, "Be calm, I mean you no harm!"

Kat throws her elbow into his stomach and uses his distraction to flip his weight over her shoulder and onto his back across the sands. Ripping out her knife, she goes to stab at his head but his hands reach up to stop her arm.

"You would attack an unarmed man?!" the man snarls.

Kat pauses, staring down into his face. It's the same man from before, the one who attacked her on the boat, the one she fought in camp, and the one who pretty much took her hostage not too long ago. The only difference was now he wore no headdress or cloth to hide his head or face, leaving his shoulder length, wavy black hair free to the wind.

She narrows her gaze, momentarily going speechless, "This coming from the guy who extended a sword to my throat and held me hostage not too long ago."

He jabs a finger into the crook of her elbow suddenly, making one of those weird yet ticklish pains shoot through her arm, and she draws back with a hiss. Jumping to his feet, he holds up his fists towards her and she flips her knife as they circle each other.

"You fight well…for a woman," he states randomly.

Kat forces a sarcastic smile, "Aw, same to you."

The man blinks, fleetingly confused by her words, and she rushes at him before he can recuperate. He blocks her knife left and right a few times before knocking it out of her hand and forcing her to fight with her bare hands. Kat flips backwards to put some distance between them and then raises her fists again…only to lower them in surprise when he raises his hands in surrender.

"I come to you unarmed. Why do you perceive me as a threat?" he demands.

Kat rolls her eyes, "You clearly know how to handle a few moves in hand to hand combat so it's obvious that you could easily snap my neck with your bare hands at any given moment if you got the chance to. That makes you a threat."

The man takes a moment, breathing laboriously from their fight, and Kat takes the moment to catch her own breath. When he makes his next move, she's outright stunned at his choice.

He hesitantly lowers himself to his knees and raises his hands higher until they are level with his head, staring up at her as he waits for her response. Kat's jaw goes slack, glancing away uncertainly, and trying to decide what to do. He's obviously quick on his feet—he could easily jump up and attack her again when she got close—and he's also unpredictably cunning. She's seen him pull out weapons from absolutely nowhere. Who's to say he didn't have a smaller weapon hidden away somewhere in those robes of his or in the wraps tied snuggly around his waist.

Her eyes linger there against her will and she quickly corrects herself with an eye roll, "I'm still not convinced that I shouldn't raise an alarm and call the whole camp over here to skin you alive." She's sure they wouldn't skin him—they're not barbarians—but if she could scare him enough to make him think twice about coming back to attack then she's all for it.

Again the man's shoulders sag, whether in annoyance or defeat she can't be sure, and his eyes flit over towards her dagger lying forgotten in the sand.

"Don't even think about it," she warns through her teeth, taking a step to her right to put herself closer to the discarded weapon. He lifts his eyes to her, holding them steadily, and then very slowly reaches over to pick it up. What really surprises her is that he places the tip of the knife directly against the center of his chest with the hilt facing towards her.

"We both know you could easily kill me now if you desired," he states.

But before the full sentence could make it out of his mouth, Kat has blurred forward and slapped the knife out of his hands, sending it flying with impossible speeds through the air and blade first into the surface of a nearby pillar. The stone cracks a second after it buries into it.

Kat gasps in alarm suddenly catching on to what she'd done, staring horrified at the knife and then to the hand that had thrown it away from him. Her breath hitches in her throat as she stares down at her shaking palm, "W-what…I didn't…How…?"

"It is as I thought," the man states quietly, standing slowly as he stares off at the knife in the wall of the column before turning his gaze to her.

"Why does it sound like you're about to tell me something I don't want to hear…?" Kat balls her hands back up slowly and turns a heated glare to him as she backs away slowly, once more raising her fists defensively.

"I believe you have a connection to this place," he says as he advances towards her. She continues to back up in response. "I witnessed it once during our last fight. You looked lost in a vision."

Kat scoffs as she keeps backing away from him, turning to put fallen ruins of pillars and stones between them, "Yeah, I don't believe in all that mumbo-jumbo, voodoo nonsense. So your tricks aren't going to work on me."

The man spreads his arms out to his sides as he continues to follow her as she backs away, "It is your own words you refuse to believe. I saw your eyes when we fought, saw your reaction when you touched my blade. You felt but did not see."

Kat hops up the steps to the top of the platform in her attempt to get away from him but he rushes up them after her and quickly cuts her off. She stumbles back away from him towards the center of the platform, "You're crazy-!"

"Still denying the obvious," he cuts her off. "You saw something. You've been here before."

"Yes, I've been here," she snaps. "My brother and I were in the Legionnaire, we marched out here to find this city and then had to watch our entire battalion get pretty much wiped clean off the face of the earth."

"We saw," he responds, still advancing on her with a narrowed gaze.

"Yeah, I guessed that was you and your friends on that ridgeline that we saw," she shoots back. Finally tired of running, Kat swings her fist at him only for him to block, grabbing her wrist firmly.

"I stand by my belief that you have a connection to this place. Whether you like it or not," he growls, finally sounding annoyed.

"And I stand my belief that you're still crazy!" Kat throws her other fist at his face and he blocks it again, closing his finger around her hand.

"Then prove me wrong. Tell me there is nothing here that you recognize."

Kat throws her eyes around sarcastically at the pillars that are left standing around the perimeter of the platform, "I don't recognize…any…thing…" Her eyes catch something that does snag her attention. Something she's seen before.

The carving of the Egyptian woman she had seen in the room under the city and on top of the coffin. This time as well, she wields the weird whip-looking weapons.

The man follows her gaze and spots the hieroglyph she stares at and then slowly shifts his eyes back to her face, looking for the signs he had seen before that she had gone into a vision. There's nothing.

"I've seen that…" Kat whispers slowly.

"In a vision?"

"No," she answers, unable to take her eyes off the carving, "In a room down below and on top of a coffin." Her arms start going slack as her fists drop and he lets them go, letting her walk away towards the hieroglyphics. Kat gets about a step away, close enough to see that even in this painting the woman's eyes are weird looking, before stopping. She slowly reaches out to touch the pillar but a sudden hiss of wind whirls around her, kicking up sand, and Kat gasps.

The second she turns around, the pressure reappears at the back of her skull and the world melts away into a totally different one.

This time she stands on a platform similar to this one only this one doesn't lie in ruin. The world isn't washed over in golden light as the last world had been the time before; this time the moon rules this scene. She waits by a pillar as a line of men form a circle near the center of the platform, knelt down with their foreheads to the ground, and another man dressed in darker robes stands in the center. His head is bald and he's facing away from her but for some reason she feels like she knows him even though she knows she's never seen him before. The man spreads his arms wide and lifts them up as if he's going to embrace the moon above but then he turns towards her and his face is revealed.

A second later, a whisper of a hand presses on her shoulder and the world flashes away. She jerks with a gasp and shifts her eyes around frantically. The man in black stands before her, watching her carefully as she blinks out the pressure from her eyes.

Kat realizes that it was his hands that had pressed down on her shoulder and pulled her from…whatever that was. His hands are warmer than she thought they would be and bigger; they make her feel almost…at ease.

 _ _No!__ , she throws his hands off of her shoulders and backs away, wiping her mouth as she does.

"You saw something," he quickly calls before she can run off.

"I saw you leaving before I called for back up to rip you apart," she snarls. With that, she spins on her heel and storms off back to camp, hating the feeling of her quickened heart beat in her chest. She can't tell if it's from the weird experience or because she had found him so close.

* * *

Kat hadn't wanted to but she walks into camp just as things are getting gushy between Rick and Evie. The poor woman is obviously drunk and running her mouth with slurred words as she teeters off balance.

She drops to her knees before Rick and stares deeply into his eyes as best as she can with her unfocused gaze, a blush painting her face, and lowers her voice a tad. Poor Rick looks half scared to death of whatever it is she's about to say to him.

"I am…going to kiss you…Mr. O'Connell," Evie blurts out.

The fear melts off his face when he realizes she's not going to say whatever he thought she was going to say and tells her, "Call me Rick."

This response seems to delight Evie to no end as she repeats his name with something near adoration, humming each syllable affectionately, "Rick…"

Kat presses her lips tightly together to keep the ball of laughter building inside of her from spurting out all over the place as she watches the scene. Evie leans forward clumsily, Rick tilts his head to meet her, Kat holds her breath…

And down Evie falls face first onto Rick knee unconsciously.

"Buahahahaahahaahaa!" Kat grabs her stomach and falls to her knees on the blanket she's using a bedding, sinking into the fetal position on her side as her hysteria rumbles through her body in shudders.

Rick gently lays Evie's passed out form onto her blanket, glaring at his sister, "Shut up."

"I'm sorry!" she tries to respond through her giggles. "That was so perfect! You're such a romancer!"

"Shut up!" he snaps as he tosses his bag at her. Kat catches it and cradles it against her stomach only making her giggle fit that much worse. Rick curls up on his blanket with a glare and puts his back to her.

"Oh, don't sulk!" she baits him. "I'm sure she won't remember a thing tomorrow morning, she'll be too hung over."

Rick grabs his rifle, spins over to glower at her as he cocks it threateningly at her. Kat pushes his bag to the side and sits up, unable to take his threat seriously as she fights hard to keep in her snickers, "I-I'm sorry…I'm sorry I really am. I honestly needed that laugh right now."

Rick pauses his rage momentarily as he takes a good look at his sister. In the firelight, he can see that she looks oddly pale, which is rare for her with her skin more naturally darker than his; they are only half siblings after all. Also her face is much too red for a simple fit of giggles to cause. Beyond that, her hands are shaking.

"Yeah, you look like you do," he comments as he sits up and crosses his legs. "You alright?"

Kat's chuckles slowly dissipate as she turns her eyes down to her own crossed legs, "Y-Yeah, I just…uh…well, you know. All this excitement has me worried that's all."

Rick isn't buying it, "Na-uh, what's up? You've been in plenty of fights before and that earlier was nothing compared to what we've been through together. What's got you riled up?"

She chews the inside of her cheek as she lowers her head ever further to hide her eyes from his interrogating gaze. Kat tries not to think back over her talk with the man in black not ten minutes ago but the memories fight against her effort to push them back. So she forces herself to think of something more soothing—like the song her brother used to hum to her when they were younger.

It always put her at ease when she used to have nightmares.

Kat crawls over to her brother's side, leans against his broad shoulder and wraps her arm around his elbow like she used to do when they were kids, "You remember that song you used to hum to me back at the orphanage?"

"You mean the one mom taught us?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"What about it?"

"Could you sing it? You know, for old time's sake?" she asks, dropping her eyes to her hands as she fiddles her thumbs together restlessly.

"Why?"

"Please?" Kat urges, refusing to answer. Rick sighs, patting her arm, and then quietly begins to hum the song so as not to wake the other two siblings across the fire from them. As always, the song lulls Kat's eyelids closed and before long she can feel the pull of sleep on her body.

 _ _Always works__ , Kat thinks one last time before letting exhaustion take over her.


	7. Chapter 6

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 6:**

"Oh! I've dreamt about this since I was a little girl!" Evie exclaims excitedly as they set the smaller coffin upright against the wall. They had opened the first sarcophagus earlier that morning to find this more elaborate one within. It was made of onyx colored casing and covered in hieroglyphics from top to bottom, except for the Egyptian head of a man carved at the top and two arms crossed over the top.

Kat steps back to get a better view of the smaller coffin around six feet tall, tossing a confused glance at Evie briefly. You'd think with as much as she had drunk the night before she would've been suffering from a massive hangover this morning but nope. Evie barely had a headache for all of five minutes before turning into a bubble of eagerness.

It annoyed Kat to now end; she hardly slept a wink last night and her morning was not starting out that well. She gazes at the coffin again and recognizes the image of the Egyptian woman with the whips again four or five times etched into the top of it. She glares at them.

"You dream about dead guys?" Rick asks as they take a step back from the coffin.

"Oh, look, the sacred spells have been chiseled off," Evie points towards the front of the coffin in interest. "This man must've been condemned not only in this life but the next."

"Sounds harsh," Kat grumbles, rubbing the headache still beating at her temples.

"Tough break," Rick adds with a worried glance at his sister.

"Yeah," Jonathan agrees before grunting something else as he turns the puzzle box-turned-key to unlock the coffin and then tosses it aside. "Let's see whose inside, shall we?"

Kat and Evie take a step back to let the men show off their muscles and with a hard strain and one tough pull, the box lid explodes off with a loud _boom_ and they all leap back as a screaming wind comes blasting out from inside. A mummy shoots out of nowhere and they all scream.

"God, I hate it when these things do that," Evie growls in frustration after they realize the mummy is really truly dead and had only thrust out due to gravity.

"Is he supposed to look like that?" Kat asks, reaching out to touch the slimy looking jaw of the mummy that juts out at a horrifyingly disfigured angle. Rick slaps her hand to stop her. "What? I just wanted to poke it."

"No, he's not supposed to look like this. I've never seen a mummy look like this before. He's still…still…" Evie struggles to find the right word as she looks the corpse over in disgust.

"Juicy," Jonathan and Rick finish for her.

"Only you two," Kat shakes her head.

"Yes, it's the perfect word actually," Evie agrees with the boys. "H-He must be more than three thousand years old and…well, it looks as if he's still…decomposing."

"Hey, guys, look at this," Kat calls to them. While they were discussing the gooey mummy corpse in the hallow box, she had caught sight of something that looked rather odd inside the lid of the case. "What do you make of this?"

They all join her at the lid lying on the ground and Evie runs her fingers along the marks inside curiously, "My God, these marks were made with…fingernails." She shoots her eyes up at the mummy in horror, "This man was buried alive."

Kat tilts her head a bit to the side, squinting at a set of extra deep marks in the center of all the scratches, "Is this something here."

Evie fingers the marks in question, "Looks like he left a message. It says…Death is only the Beginning."

"Oh, yeah, that's not ominous at all," Kat moans with an eye roll.

* * *

Later that night, Kat leaves the group who converse with the Americans about who got the better find of the day, to find her a nice, quiet spot nearby to take a breather. Making sure there aren't any wandering eyes, particularly male—she's noticed a few of the Americans have no manners or decency what so ever—before she ducks behind her camel with her water canister and small towel.

She removes her V-neck, loose sleeved shirt, pulling it over her head and revealing her white undershirt underneath. It hugs her torso with thins strings the tie at the tops of her shoulders to hold it up. The cool, night air tickles her flesh as she tilts her water canister over to soak the small towel. Wringing it out, she starts to wipe off her arms, chest, and neck to rid her body of the sand that has begun to form a thin layer over her skin from constant exposure to the desert.

Kat eyes the camel warily as it grunts suddenly and the lets out a low groan of annoyance, pausing and waiting for it to turn on her to snap at her ankles again. This beast just doesn't like her.

As she starts to lift her shirt from her stomach to clean around her waist, "Your time is running out."

"Ah!" Kat spins, throwing her fist out and catching the peeping tom across the jaw. The connection sends a tremor down her arm as fist hits bone with a _whack_ and the guy stumbles back. Again, it's the man in black. "What is wrong with you?! I told you to go away!"

"Lower your voice," he hisses, wiping the blood at the corner of his mouth away. "I have come to tell you that your time is running short here."

"Don't you think we heard you clear enough the first time you told us when you and your men road through our camp on horseback with swords and injured our people? We got the message," she shoots back sarcastically.

"And yet you still remain here."

"Because not everyone is put off by your threats."

"We warn you for your own safety," he snaps.

"Oh, that was a warning?" Kat mocks surprise before reaching for her over shirt hanging on the saddle at the camel's feet. "If you're talking about that stupid curse the Americans read about on that box they found, then you're wasting your breath. Not everyone believes in myths and superstitions."

The man lashes out and catches her by the elbow as she starts to turn away again, "You fool with powers you do not understand!"

Kat quickly drop her shirt and swings her fist at his face but he stops it yet again with his hand and she groans in frustration, "Duly noted! Now get lost!"

For a long moment they both just glare heatedly at each other, their arm muscles tight at the pull and push against the other's strength and grip. She tries to ignore the hyper awareness overcoming her at his close proximity but when his eyes briefly shift down towards her chest she jerks her arms away from him and shoves him in the chest to put him further away from her in a flash, breathing heavily.

"Keep your eyes where they belong," Kat warns him with a low growl through her teeth.

He ignores her threat and motions with his head towards her, "The mark on your chest…"

Kat turns away at his words and seizes up her shirt from the sand, pulling it up over her head without caring that sand had gotten in it and shifts across her flesh to the ground around her. She pulls her braid of hair out and rights the shirt on her shoulders before moving to strap the knife sheaths onto her calves over her pants again.

"It's a birthmark, you pervert," Kat finally admits in a low angry voice, fighting back the overwhelming shame of the truth that fills her chest. The mark in question, a lighter discoloration across her flesh above her heart, forms a distortedly shaped diamond silhouette against her tanned skin. About an inch long and half an inch wide, the mark has stood out like a disgusting blotch on her tan skin all her life, forcing her to cover herself and hide it away. It's not as bad as her…other deformity but it still reminded her just how unlucky she really is.

She starts to storm away back to camp, willing to pay anything to get away from the guy, but when she glances back over her shoulder she doesn't see any sign of him. He's vanished as quickly as the wind does on the open sands of the desert.

Kat makes it about five paces from where Rick and Evie are huddled close looking over some weird book or whatever when not far away, Dr. Chamberlain shoots straight up off his cot screaming, "NO! YOU MUST NOT READ FROM THE BOOK!"

Something cold comes over Kat and then a sharp pain burns her alive from the inside out. Screaming bloody murder, she hits her knees, wrapping her arms tightly around her body, and hunches over in a feeble attempt to protect herself from the internal assault ripping her apart.

"KAT!" Rick's voice distantly screams for her. It sounds as if it's coming at her from above water somewhere and yet she just keeps sinking further and further away as the pain swallows her up. Her flesh feels as if it becomes a living fire, white-hot and boiling. Her insides feel as if a thousand knifes are slicing her apart, carving into her a pattern that's sure to be permanent for all of time.

A voice roars powerfully and bitterly in her mind, no amount of pain can keep her away from it, and it floods power into her blood that reminds her of acid and venom:

 _ **AWAKEN!**_

 _ **YOU WILL NEVER EAT**_

 _ **YOU WILL NEVER SLEEP**_

 _ **AND YOU WILL NEVER STOP**_

…

 _ **THE HUNT BEGINS!**_


	8. Chapter 7

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 7:**

"KAT! KAT, WAKE UP! KATHERINE O'CONNELL, WAKE UP!"

As if suddenly able to breathe again, Kat gasps in a huge breath until her lungs burn from the onslaught of oxygen before letting out a convulsion of coughs and choking gags. Two pairs of arms help her to sit up and turn her to the side so that she doesn't choke on whatever it is that she's coughing up.

"Oh, thank God," Rick breathes as he tucks his sister close to his chest and gasps in relief as he reveals in the feel of his sister's breath against his shoulder. Labored though it may be, it meant she was alive. "You're alright. I gotcha, I gotcha."

"W-what…" Kat forces out through her dried, raw throat. Everything hurts. Even the hair on her head hurts.

"It's alright, you're okay. You're okay, you're okay," Rick chants over and over as he just holds her to his chest. Kat lifts her weak arms and tries her best to hug him back but all she can muster is the strength to clasp her fingers into his shirt so her arms can't fall back limply to her sides. Another voice says something softly and Kat can feel her brother's arms tense up around her, "Yeah, move. We've…we've got to move. Kat, do you think you could stand?"

"Y-yeah," she breathes. "I want to try."

Rick and Jonathan help her as she pushes herself onto her shaky legs, momentarily pausing as she lurches forward when her stomach starts to churn, but then she glances at them both with a nod.

As she stands there between them, she notices the chill across her skin and wishes that she had a thicker shirt, "Why is it so cold?"

Rick, Jonathan, and Evie all glance at each other worriedly.

"None of you…" Kat slowly catches on and nods to herself. "Maybe I'm catching a cold or something."

"In the desert?" Jonathan wonders aloud.

At the time, all Kat can do is wonder how the heck they had gotten down into the temple when they had just been outside in the camp, but then a sudden tremor shakes the temple around them, causing them all to stumble. Then a strange noise sounds behind them. They all turn towards it, Rick tightening his arm around his sister's shoulder to hold her up, and they turn their gazes to the floor. The sands are rising, shifting away in waves as the mound grows from the floor.

Then it abruptly breaks open like a nest and black bugs come spilling out in swells!

"What the-?!" Kat gags.

"Scarabs!" Evie screams.

Rick takes his sister by the hand as they all take off down the maze of halls, their torches lighting the way through the darkness of the underground temple.

"Go, go, go!" Rick orders. "Run!"

They tear around a corner and exit through the spider web covered archway onto a ramp leading up through a chamber to the next part of the temple above. The bugs follow after them, gaining ground with each passing second. Rick and Jonathan quickly leap across the chasm to the top of a pillar about five feet out from the ramp while Evie and Kat pump their legs one final rush to make it to the inside of a crevice along the wall.

Kat lands on her side as her legs give out from under her and she quickly kicks herself away from the edge of the crevice and presses her back against the wall behind her. Evie does the same beside her as they try to catch their breaths, watching in relief as the wave of bugs creeps by loudly and disappears up the ramp and into the temple halls beyond.

Kat rests her head against the wall behind her and closes her eyes.

 _Click_.

Her eyes rip open just as the wall shifts once and then falls out from behind them both, tossing Evie and herself into a dark hole. As they slide down the darkness, Kat tries to reach for Evie's hand or arm or something but they are separated somewhere along the way. Their screams echo away around them.

* * *

The darkness spits her out and Kat's body slides clean across the smooth stone of the floor, stray sand slicing across her skin as she skids to a stop. She coughs a few times to clear her lungs of the dust she kicks up in her wake before sitting up. Her arms shake under her, still weak, and the chill on her skin feels like it's sinking further into her. The room around her is unfamiliar but she can tell she was thrown _down_ some kind of trap so she's most likely back in the lower levels she had woken up in a little while ago.

The question now is how to find her brother and the team when she's not sure if they escaped by going up to the next level or back down here. Secondly, she wonders if she can navigate back to the ramp where she had triggered the trap door; at least from there she could try and track her brother to where he went.

"AAAGGGH!"

Kat scrambles to her feet at the distant scream, "Evie!" Her own scream echoes around her as she races out of the room. Racing down the tunnels left and right, the solid floors soon turn to sand again and she has to pick her feet up higher to avoid tripping.

A gunshot sounds a moment later just as she's skidding around a corner and into a new room. Across the room, her brother, Evie, Jonathan and two of the Americans are racing out of the room through another door.

"Did you see that?!" one of the Americans scream hysterically. "It was walking! It was walking!"

It's then that Kat notices the…

 _What the…heck…_ , her thoughts all but stop in her head as whatever it is climbs up off the floor, twisting abnormally to screech off at the archway where everyone had up and left. Her breath hitches in alarm in her throat as she stares at the creature before her. Though she had only been around it for a short time, Kat would recognize it anywhere.

It was the mummy they dug up out of the locked coffin.

Her back hits the wall as her legs begin to shake again from exhaustion. The creature's murky eyes swing in her direction and lock to her emerald green ones firmly. Something happens. Kat's body jerks once, her vision blurring and then sharpening, she seizes again and her vision blurs once more, then it clears. Her breath stops in her lungs as her blood burns to life in her body, reawakening the acid she had felt scorching through her as the voice had washed over her.

Again her body seizes and stiffens up completely then. Her lungs burn, begging for air as her vision blurs once again. This time when it clears, she can only see that scene she had witnessed the other night. The ring of bowed men, the moonlight bathing the world around them, the man embracing the moon; it's all there.

Then the bald man, dressed in priest's robes, walks towards her with a face so familiar and yet completely unknown. Her vision blurs again, returning her to the present—the priest is replaced by the mummy that stalks towards her.

 _This was him_ , Kat thinks one last time before she blacks out.

The mummy opens its deformed mouth and yells something she just doesn't understand, " _ **BASTET!**_ "

The word ignites the fire boiling in her blood and everything goes dark. She can feel her body falling…but never hit the ground.

* * *

" _Ardeth!_ "

The man in black at the front of the army of men stops as one of his men calls to him. He orders his men to a halt in his fluent language. The scout who had called to him motions his way before disappearing down the tunnel deeper into the temple.

Ardeth signals for his men to move down the same hall just as a gunshot sounds. The army quickens their pace in an attempt to catch up with the scout ahead of them. Just as they enter into the next chamber, the scout fires off a few rounds from his gun at something before a loud screech reverberates through the temple halls.

Ardeth hurries into the room and stops cold; there before him stands the creature they have all given their oaths to keep from awakening.

The mummy turns directly towards them and wails loudly at them in a threatening manner. Something moves across the room and Ardeth braves a brief shift of his gaze towards it, watching as a slender form falls towards the floor. He recognizes her, the woman from the camp.

Instead of falling to her side limply as he feared she would, her body suddenly goes stiff and she lands in a kneeling position, one knee raised and both fists planted firmly on the ground on each side of her. The pressure in the room changes and the creature seems to sense it.

Turning around the mummy screams at the woman who has gone still. Her lungs take in a deep breath before raising her eyes. Ardeth's breath stops cold and his men back away in panic.

The woman's eyes are blazing a bright green, illuminating from some unknown source within her. Her gaze locks firmly on the creature, unmoving. She's found her target. Her left hand lifts at her side and it rips open as her nails extend to claws.

The mummy screams at her again, taking one step back.

The young woman opens her own mouth, fangs forming there, and she lets out a shriek that sounds like that of a wild cat. In an inhuman flash, the young woman twists her other arm up, some strange green stream of light shooting out of her finger tips, and she lashes the beam out like a whip. It slices into the creature and knocks it back a few feet.

The mummy regains its footing before roaring again and vanishing into sand that blows away down the hall opposite Ardeth and his men.

The temple chamber goes deadly silent; no one dares to move for fear that the crouched woman across the room might attack them next. Ardeth releases a breath and the woman's eyes dart in his direction with a low feral growl.

He raises his hands slowly, turning his eyes to the floor so he doesn't meet her gaze. He swallows. What had the American called her? _Kat_? That had to be short for something American…maybe Katherine? Yes, Ardeth recalled hearing him call her Katherine once before. He dares to raise his eyes again and he opens his mouth.

Before he can speak her name, the glow of her eyes vanishes with a ghostly sigh and she falls limply to the floor. A long moment passes before Ardeth goes to her side cautiously and crouches down to touch her shoulder; it's as cold as ice even through her shirt.

Nearby, a man groans and Ardeth looks towards him. It's one of the Americans.

" _Take him outside,_ " he tells his men in his language. Two of his madjai move forward and pick the injured man up under the arms and they quickly move to take him out of the room. Ardeth turns his attention back to the motionless woman lying before him. He takes her shoulder in his palm and gently rolls her over towards him. Her eyes are open slightly, eyelids fluttering restlessly as her unseeing gaze stares out at nothing.

 _So the legends are true_ , he thinks to himself as he watches her chest rise and fall unsteadily. Setting his jaw, he lifts her smoothly into his arms and doesn't object when her head rolls onto the wrap over his shoulder near his neck.

" _Regroup above ground_ ," he orders and his men move out silently towards the entrance of the temple. He's not sure what he'll do with the young woman but she needs aid and he knows just the person who can help…if at all.

Many tales he's heard of the event he just witnessed but they were old tales from thousands of years ago. Many thought they were simply stories to frighten young children of his tribe and yet…

His eyes shift down to her silent form, all but lifeless in his arms.

And yet here she is.

* * *

Rick and his team come barreling out of the temple into the cool night, dead locust bugs still cover the ground from when they had come flying into the city in hordes from out in the middle of the desert, but that's not what stops them in their tracks.

A line of men in black stand armed and ready to kill anything that moves that may come out from under the ground but they don't make a move to attack them. The Egyptologist, Dr. Chamberlain is on his knees, shuddering cowardly before the army. The man at the front of the line of men, arms full with a body cradled against his chest, addresses them and Rick recognizes him in an instant.

With perfect English, the madjai chief states flatly, "We told you to leave or die. You refused. Now you may have killed us all for you have unleashed the creature that we have feared for more than three thousand years."

"Relax, I got him," Rick growls.

"No mortal weapon can kill this creature!" the chief cuts him off, "He's not of this world." With that, he moves aside so that two of his men can step by as they drag a limp body between them, dropping it into the arms of the Americans in their group. Everyone looks in horror at what remains of Mr. Burns as the poor man moans in pain.

"You Bastards!" Mr. Daniels demands as he looks over his friend's condition. The man's eyes are closed but the areas around them are bruised over in deep purples and blacks.

"What'd you do to him?!" Mr. Henderson adds in outrage.

"We saved him," the madjai chief shuts off their accusations quickly before they can begin, "Saved him before the creature could finish his work. Now leave all of you, quickly, before he finishes you all."

Rick's eyes go wide in horror as the madjai turns his head to snarl at the two Americans, the wrap around his neck moving away to reveal the face of the body cradled to his chest. It's his sister!

Beside him, Evie must've seen as well when he did for she gasps quickly.

Rick cocks his gun and aims it at the madjai's head, advancing forward angrily, "What the hell did you do to my sister?!"

The army takes a step forward to close the distance between them and their chief at Rick's threat but their leader orders them to stop in their foreign language before turning to the fuming Rick, "She is unharmed…though I cannot say the same of the curse ripping her apart from the inside."

"Curse?!" Evie gasps, stepping up beside Rick.

"What curse?" Jonathan asks.

"She was never cursed. I would know, we've been inseparable since we got here. That and she would've told me," Rick growls as he tightens his finger around the trigger of his gun.

"Neither of you would have known if she were born with it," the madjai shoots back.

Rick's group falls silent.

Evie swallows after a long moment before speaking up worriedly, "Y-you said…it was ripping her apart…"

"I know of someone who can help her, he may know of a way to break her curse-."

"She's not going anywhere with you!" Rick lifts his gun that has sagged slightly.

"She will if you value her life!" the man shouts. Rick blinks in surprise. Of all the times he's run into this man, the madjai had always kept a calm, level voice. He'd never once lost his cool. The madjai seems to regain himself after a moment, "Rest assured, you have my oath that she will be returned to you unharmed."

Before anyone can say another word, the chief calls out in his language and the order sets his men in motion. They lower their guns and head towards the entrance of the temple silently, keeping sturdy holds on their guns as they pass.

"We must now go on the hunt," the chief explains, "Try and find a way to kill him."

"I already told you, I got him," Rick responds again with a half-hearted voice.

The chief had been turning to head for his horse but pauses, shifting his hold around Kat's limp body and causing her eyes to flutter worse, "Know this: this creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop."

Rick watches helplessly as the man hands off his sister's body momentarily to a black-clad man bringing over a horse so that he can climb into the saddle before reaching back down and lifting her back into his arms in front of him. Her head lolls to the side weakly and Rick's heart shudders in his chest; her face is so, terribly pale.

Her beautiful green eyes, usually so alight with life, are now faded and dull. Almost like those of a corpse.


	9. Chapter 8

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 8:**

She never fell asleep.

Sleep seemed so foreign to her.

Darkness had overcome her, leaving her lost in a sort of limbo that kept her lost and confused. That didn't mean she was kept from sounds of screaming, yelling, roars, or cat-like growls. She felt the ever assault of the pain still burning through her body, felt the fires burning around her wrists when she started to float back to her body.

She came back to her pain wrecked body and stared out of unseeing eyes, unable to move an inch of her body. Kat remembers the warmth that had enveloped her, giving her a small amount of comfort from the pain and something to focus on besides the agony.

As the minutes turned to hours, she became more in tuned with her body, finding a way through the darkness to twitch her fingers or her toes, to slow the rapid, uncontrollable fluttering of her eyelids, and to try and blink away the blurriness sheathing her vision away. The colorless world became clearer and vibrant once more.

At first, Kat doesn't understand the fibers she's staring into. They crisscross over each other in a dark burgundy color that was almost closer to black. It's a bit hard to breathe through the fabric so she tries to take in a deeper breath only to be met with a dry, raw throat and a few weak coughs.

Someone hums something in a foreign language, a comforting comment she can tell, and then the fabric is gently pulled away from her face. Something smooth touches her bottom lip, another few words said in an unknown language, and Kat forces her dry lips to open wider.

She gratefully awaits what she hopes is water and all but greedily gulps down the liquid that touches her tongue…until the taste of it registers and Kat gags. She lurches forward in a terrible fit of coughs, her body convulsing against the onslaught as she chokes the liquid back up and spits it back out.

 _Fuel! It tastes like fuel! Why would they put fuel in my mouth?!_ , Kat screams in her mind. Were they trying to poison her? Trying to kill her? Rick wouldn't allow this. She must have been kidnapped or something!

Only…a kidnapper wouldn't be rubbing her back comfortingly, wouldn't be chanting something to her in words she didn't understand to sooth her. A kidnapper wouldn't be pulling her hair back over her shoulder gently so it was out of her face.

She felt frozen, cold, and for some reason, she just now registers how badly her body is shuddering against it. The arms tighten around her when she finally stops heaving and return her weak frame to its former position cradled against the solid chest of her captor. Kat would love to slip into a deep sleep and just pass out for days but every time darkness comes to take her, the acid in her blood strikes at it and sends it away.

Kat then suddenly remembers the words the voice had spoken the first time this pain took over her, right after Evie had read from that cursed book, " _ **You Will Never Eat, You Will Never Sleep, And You Will Never Stop**_."

 _Evie, why'd you read from that stupid book_ , Kat wants to cry and she must've started hallucinating because she could feel herself bawling on the inside uncontrollably.

Sinking into herself as deep as she can, Kat tries to figure out some way to get herself to rest but with all the rocking, no matter how lulling, nothing works. She can only manage to get herself lost in her own chaotic thoughts swirling around in her mind unanchored. It helps to pass the time a bit faster, even give her a chance to escape a little from the nonsense going on outside of her.

After a few more hours, something changes.

The noises change from swirling wind to chattering voices and beeping horns of cars.

Where the heck is she now?

Before she knows it, the rocking stops, and she's lifted into a set of strong arms. The abrupt change of movement makes her head swirl and her stomach churn; her sense of time blurs again as she shrinks away from the pain.

"Ardeth Bay."

Kat's eyebrows pull together as she slips back into her mind, she's lying down now along something smooth—a table maybe? What was 'ardeth bay'? It sounded like a food or something. Groaning, she forces her heavy eyelids to lift and let in the light around her. Her vision clears of the fog and the blurriness and she finds herself looking into a large room filled with books and shelves.

What the heck is she doing in a library?! Who does she know from a library besides maybe Evie? Maybe she is with her brother and their comrades…but then why hasn't she heard her brother's voice considering how loud he is all the time?

"Who is this?"

The voice from before speaks softly again—definitely not her brother—and approaches closer to her position. She wants to move but she's shaking too much from the cold freezing her insides to stone.

Someone with a deep accent responds in that foreign language. It's the voice that comforted her during her coughing fit…the man from the camp. She remembers now.

The first voice responds in their language and Kat tunes them out, obviously not going to get anything out of it if she can't understand them. Something drapes over her and warms her a bit; she instantly curls up under it, rolling from her back to her side in the fetal position.

"Are you sure?" the first voice asks softly.

"I believe so…" the second voice now speaks English and Kat is positive it's the perverted man in black from camp. Right now, though, she's too weak to care.

If only she could just sleep, she just wants to sleep…

* * *

" _Do you have proof,_ " Terence Bay, the museum curator, demands quietly in their language. The tassel on his red hand swings as he turns to the madjai chief. " _You know you need proof before you do something like this, Ardeth._ "

Ardeth nods and moves forward deftly, reaching for the shuddering girl's arms. Her loose sleeves have fall down to her wrists from their normal positions scrunch up around her elbows and he pushes them back up.

There along her skin, circling her wrists and then traveling in a straight line up the insides of her forearms where they disappear under her shirt sleeves, are dark hieroglyphs that tattoo her tanned skin. As he pulls back to allow the curator to investigate the writings on her flesh, Ardeth tries not to notice the feeling left behind on his fingertips from her skin.

Of all his years of training, he's never met a woman, from his tribe or otherwise, who could stand up to him in battle. Very few of his men could last a sparring session against him. And yet, here comes this slender woman with a well-built frame and fiery green eyes that lifts her fists and attacks without second thought, and he's forced to put forth a good amount of energy to keep her at bay when they fight. In the end, he always walks away breathing heavier every time.

" _So the stories were true,_ " the curator finally speaks after taking a long moment to study the hieroglyphs on her arms. Ardeth lets his eyes follow the trail of the tattoos along her arms until they vanish beneath her sleeve; he has to stop himself from wondering just how far along her body they stretch. The curator's voice pulls him from his thoughts and he hardens his expression on his face to keep the museum keeper from getting curious as to his pause, " _For so long, I believed the tales were just myths and here they are as true as the legends of Imhotep himself. The weapon exists._ "

"I saw her transformation with my own eyes when the creature had appeared before her," Ardeth explains, reverting back to English. "The traits of Bastet were on her."

At the same time, they both look up and let their eyes travel over to an onyx colored statue on the other side of the room with the head of a cat and the body of a woman.

"That…thing…called me….that…"

Ardeth snaps his eyes down at the weak voice that stirs from the table top. The young woman turns her head up and squeezes her eyes shut tightly in agony as she tries to sit up.

"You must rest-."

"I…can't…" she cuts him off as the curator tries to stop her advance. He glances at Ardeth in confusion but he shakes his head and returns his look of confusion.

"Why can't you?" Terence Bay inquires.

The girl swallows, her throat moving tightly against what Ardeth is sure is a very dry throat. He had tried to give her water on the journey back to the museum when she had started to cough but it only succeeded in making her spit up violently.

"I…don't….k-know…"

"Get her some water," the curator orders Ardeth who hesitantly hands him the water canister he carries on his belt. He takes it from him and holds it out to her, "Drink, child."

"NO!"

"It is only water, my dear, you must drink," the curator assures her.

Kat weakly pauses in her feeble attempt at pushing his arm away but she blinks at the water canister and swallows heavily again through weighty eyelids. Ardeth can see the thirst she's fighting against but in the end she lets him place the water canister in her pale hands and she brings it to her mouth uncertainly.

Ardeth moves slowly around the table, watching her warily, every muscle in his body coiled and ready for the same response she gave the last time she had tasted the water. He himself had tasted it after her last episode to test to see if she had only gagged on sand that may have found its way under the lid, but it tasted only of pure, smooth water.

The young woman tilts the canister slowly…and coughs! Ardeth lunges forwards as her body recoils back and lurches to the side. The water canister crashes to the floor at his feet, spraying water onto the floor and he catches her across the chest as she leans over the side of the table to spit the water out of her mouth viciously.

"My God," Terence Bay sighs in defeat as he pats the woman's shoulder comfortingly, "So that is true as well."

"What is?" she spits out, frustration painting her tone. Her hand reaches up to grab at Ardeth's elbow at her shoulder and tries to sit up but he can feel how her arms shudder from the effort. He's alarmed at her weakened state; he's so accustomed to the strength she presents whenever they cross paths.

The curator and Ardeth share a look. They'd have to tell her something, she deserved that much.

"How much do you know of the goddess Bastet?" Terence Bay inquires of her. They help her sit up and swing her legs over the edge of the table opposite the other side so she wouldn't have to step in the water on the floor. Ardeth strides around the table back to where he had once stood originally and pauses next to her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Mister," Kat breathes as she wraps the blanket around her shivering shoulders, "I hardly know anything about Egyptian culture, what makes you think I know anything about its gods?"

Terence nods with a sigh before turning away and going to search for something along the wall of books. Over the short time he searches, he picks up a number of books and then returns to where they wait. While he's gone, Ardeth glances down at the young woman shivering under the woven blanket. His eyes study her loosened hair, usually held back in a tight braid with a sheer piece of green fabric threaded through it, the light bruise at the corner of her jaw where she must've fallen, the redness around her tired eyes, and the dryness of her lips.

His hand slips into the clip on his belt and he pulls out a small clay container with cork lid. Handing it to her, her eyes shoot up at him warily. "For your mouth," he instructs, pointing to his own, "It will help with the dryness."

Indecisively, her eyes glance from his face to the container and then back again before slowly reaching out from under the warmth of the blanket to take it from him. He tries not to jump at the iciness of her fingers that brush against his. His worry intensifies as he watches her pull the cork from the container and look inside curiously. She puts the balm inside on the tip of her finger and then cautiously rubs it along her lips.

The curator comes back then and sets the stack of books on the corner of the table she sits on. He flips through the first and then holds it out to her so she can see the pages, "This is Bastet, the goddess of cats. According to legend, she and a number of the other gods created a weapon that would be the direct shield for mankind against the creature you saw back in Hamunaptra."

The woman glances at the page and then up at the curator with a shrug, "That was…nice of them…?"

He sets the book down and picked up the next book, opening it to a certain page before setting it down in her lap. She drops her eyes to the pages open to her revealing a picture of an Egyptian drawing of a woman with whips coming out of her finger tips.

She taps the page, "I've…I saw these…this woman was on the walls of a room I was in at Hamunaptra and on the coffin that mummy came out of."

Ardeth and the curator share another look, giving her a moment to breathe, and then Terence responds, "That is the weapon the gods made to defeat the creature should he ever arise."

She looks up at him, "So there's a way to kill him. That's good. So where's this weapon at?"

Ardeth shifts his eyes away the second the curator answers her, "We believe the weapon has been reincarnated…in you."

Silence.

Ardeth shuts his eyes.

She suddenly scoffs, "Y-Yeah, sure. I'm a weapon made by Egyptian gods over three thousand years ago. Right."

The curator takes a patient breath, "According to ancient texts, the weapon is supposedly reincarnated every generation, said to awaken at the time the creature does as well. Of course, that's never happened until now."

"Hold on, wait a second!" she climbs to her feet and Ardeth quickly holds out a hand to catch her but she shoves it away stubbornly. "You have got to be kidding me. You actually think I'm so sort of weapon that was reincarnated and-."

"How do you explain the marks on your arms?" Ardeth takes her by the wrist and holds up her arm. She looks down at the tattoos painting her arms and her face pales further at the sight; she quickly rips her arm out of his grip and pulls her sleeves down to hide the marks away from sight.

He had seen this from her before back at the Hamunaptra when he saw the birthmark on her chest. She's all fists and blood when the world is all about the fight but as soon as it turns to her, she retreats like a turtle in its shell. It angers him.

Ardeth narrows his gaze on her, "Deny it all you desire but my madjai and I know what we witnessed."

She looks up at him through the veil of hair that has fallen loose from her braid along the side of her face, "What are you talking about?"

"I speak of the woman we witnessed standing up to the creature and attacking him without pause. She bore the marks of the weapon in our ancient texts and she bore your face." With that, Ardeth leaves the room and fights to return his breathing to normal pace.

* * *

Kat leans her head against the wall of the hall, taking a moment to catch her breath after climbing the stairs from the basement storeroom. Apparently the curator thought it would be a good place to put her upon their arrival to museum.

It's been about half an hour since the man had stormed out of the room and left her with the curator. He hadn't even given her the chance to return the container of balm back to him but she can understand his outrage at her. Honestly, she hadn't thought him capable to have such a temper. Sure she's seen him get frustrated but he usually kept his calm, level personality at all times.

Kat swallows and closes her eyes.

Ardeth Bay.

That's what the curator had said his name was. He said that he was a madjai sworn to guard the city of Hamunaptra and to make sure the high priest Imhotep was never resurrected. It sounded like he had a pretty stressful job especially with all the greedy people in the world who have and are still looking for the fortune of the pharaoh's that is said to be buried in the city of the dead.

A flash of his livid expression as he left the room comes flying across her memory again and Kat pushes up off the wall angrily.

 _It's not my fault he's throwing a tantrum!_ , she tells herself. _This isn't my problem! I didn't ask for this curse—I don't want it!_

She pauses mid-step. When had she started believing them about this curse nonsense they had spewed to her? Maybe it was after flipping through the books the curator left for her to read the moment the tension left the room when Ardeth stormed out.

Thinking back over the articles she had read, Kat wonders just why they thought her to be the weapon. Maybe she just had some random reaction to something from being in Hamunaptra too long. She had seen the commander of their battalion in the legionnaire go from being the most brave man she'd known to the lowest of cowards she'd ever come across in the span of two seconds when they had battled at Hamunaptra.

There's something wrong with that city and Kat's always believed that since the first time she set foot there. So who's to say something random didn't just come over her?

 _Whatever!_ , Kat shakes her head, _I don't care anymore._

No matter how many times she says it to herself, she can't fight off the memory of Ardeth's anger and the tight knot of guilt that grows in the pit of her stomach every time she remembers it. Her shivering starts to get bad again and she tucks the blanket over her shoulders tighter around her as she steps into the large room beyond. She's found that the cold settling into her gets worse every once in a while but the spells don't last too long, thankfully.

In the room, she can hear the curator, Terence Bay, and Ardeth discussing something quietly and their voices hush when they hear her come in. Ardeth turns his gaze away the second he sees her. The guilt builds in her gut again.

 _Why the heck am I feeling guilty about what I said?! I didn't do anything. I'm not in the wrong here!,_ As usual, no amount of convincing comments she chants to herself can get rid of the remorse.

The curator smiles as she steps up to where they stand, keeping a respectable distance away; she did practically bite their heads off downstairs. They're probably ready to be rid of her. She tries to return his kind gesture as she pulls the blanket tighter around her.

"How are you feeling, my dear?" Terence inquires, closing the distance between them and holding out a hand to her. She takes his hand and shakes it, her smile widening.

"Well, I would kill for some water but I guess I can't complain. Thank you…for allowing me to stay here to get back on my feet."

He waves off her thanks, "Think nothing of it. I am sorry for your thirst. Please know that if I could stop this curse or find some way around it to ease your discomfort I would gladly do so."

Kat bites her tongue before she can fuss him out for calling her cursed again and swallows as best as she can down her parched throat. She's read the Good Book, she knows God speaks against pride, and yet she's doing nothing but wallowing it in like a pig right now. Sure she hasn't exactly been walking the path of God like she should, shoot she's probably got a one way ticket to hell waiting in saint Peter's hand for the second she's dead, but she knows the basic necessities God asks from people.

So, she decides to go with God's way and see what happens. Kat pushes away her pride and smiles at the curator, "I know and I really do appreciate all your help and support. Thank you for taking care of me and for letting me rest here and for the books you lent me to read. They have made things a bit clearer for me. I'm…sorry for all I've said. You've been nothing but kind and I bit your head off the way that I did. I hope you can forgive me."

The curator quickly shakes his head, patting her hand affectionately, "You have nothing to apologize for. You've been through a terrible ordeal and I understand your reaction to all of this. It's not something anyone would believe was real in our world today."

Kat's eyes shift to Ardeth's back, rigid and stern as he studies a small pedestal with writing on it thoughtfully. The curator pats her hand again, grabbing her attention, and he nods at her in understanding before motioning towards the young madjai chief with his head.

Opening her dry mouth, Kat takes a deep breath and quells the pride that tries to stop her from speaking, "Ardeth…" His name felt so strange on her tongue, sounded so unexpected to her ears.

He turns his head just enough to lock his narrowed gaze on her and she pulls her eyes away from that intense gaze, the knot of guilt tightening. She swallows again as best as she can and fights back a cold shiver that threatens to take over her.

"I…thank you…for bringing me here. For helping me," Kat starts, "You…y-you saved my life…and I'm grateful." The shivering gets worse and she looks down at her hands now beginning to tremble. Another bad shivering spell is about to hit her. "I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how I spoke to you. I had no right to do that and…I'll give no excuse for it now. I was wrong. I…h-hope you…can…"

The curator takes her by the shoulder as the shivering spell hits and nearly knocks her to her knees as the freezing cold inside of her spikes, "Come sit quickly. You must be getting colder by the hour."

Kat takes a seat in the chair he ushers her to, next to where Ardeth stands who takes her elbow to aid her, and hunches over slightly, "N-n-no…actually…they come and go randomly….s-some…t-t-times are…w-worse than o-others."

Terence and Ardeth share a look of confusion but it's the curator that speaks, "Odd."

"I-I-Is that…b-bad?" she looks up at between them.

Their looks tell her that they have no idea so she shakes her head and lowers her gaze to her knees as she waits for the shivering spell to pass. It doesn't take a long as the last ones she's had, barely a few minutes.

"He does seem to like you, Evie."

"Yeah, what's that about?"

"What's this guy want anyhow?"

Distant bickering makes them all look up just as people enter the room from the main doorway before them.

"There's only one person I know that can possibly give us any answers," Evie answers them. As they round the corner and spy Ardeth, Evie gasps, "You?!"

Rick, Jonathan, and the two Americans, Daniels and Henderson, all rip out their guns and take aim at the madjai warrior. Kat turns stiff in her chair, grabbing the ends the armrests tightly.

"Ms. Carnahan," the curator greets exasperatedly. "Gentleman."

"What is he doing here?" Evie demands, jabbing a finger at Ardeth warily.

Terence glances at Ardeth who glares at the group, "Do you really want to know or would you prefer to just shoot us?"

"They really want to know," Kat answers for them. "Rick, put your gun away; I'm in the direction you're preparing to shoot in."

Rick's gun lowers when he hears her voice and Ardeth moves aside a bit so she can throw him a sideways smile. He steps across the room and she stands up so he can envelop her in a bear hug. Ardeth steps back further and watches them. Kat catches his stare over her brother's shoulder and he looks away quickly back to the others.

The curator motions for them all to take a seat in the area and they do just that.

"We are part of an ancient, secret society," the curator begins his explanation as everyone quiets down. "For over three thousand years, we have guarded the city of the dead. We're sworn at manhood to do any and all in our power to stop the high priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world," He stops next to the chair that Kat sits back down in, Ardeth has returned to his place on the other side of it, and for some reason she feels like they are both standing there as protection for her. She scratches her arm uneasily under the blanket.

"And now because of you we have failed," Ardeth finally speaks and Kat can hear the frustration in his voice.

"And you think this justifies the killing of innocent people?" Evie argues with a stern voice.

"To stop this creature? Let me think," the curator feigns a look of deep thought before he and Ardeth answer in union, "Yes."

Evie walks away, fuming, and Rick, sitting quietly in the chair behind her, raises a hand like a kid in a classroom, "Question: why doesn't he like cats?"

Kat raises her eyes questioningly at him and he grins.

"Well, cats are the guardians of the underworld. He will fear them until he is fully regenerated," Terence replies.

"And then he will fear nothing," Ardeth finishes.

Kat thinks this over for a second before remembering the statue of the goddess Bastet downstairs, "You think that's the reason he hates me?" Everyone in the room turns towards her as she speaks up randomly and Kat glances around awkwardly with a shrug, "Well, you told me Bastet was the goddess of cats and she's one of the gods that created the weapon. Ardeth said I had cat-like features when…whatever it was took over me…and…"

Her voice shrinks in her dry throat and all she can do is cough to cover up her sudden unease.

Rick points at her, "Why does her voice sound like that? What's wrong with her? And what is she talking about?"

"I'm just thirsty, Rick. Chill," Kat rolls her eyes as she pulls the blanket back over her shoulder when it starts to slip off.

"Then drink something. Did you people not give her any water? She sounds like she hasn't drank anything in days-."

"I can't," Kat cuts him off harshly, squeezing her eyes shut and dropping her chin. Tension becomes so thick in the room, there's no doubt it can be cut with a knife.

"What do you mean, you can't?" Evie finally asks slowly.

Kat glances uneasily up at the curator who is gazing at her with sympathy. He takes a deep breath before explaining, "Ms. Carnahan, I'm sure you are familiar with the goddess Bastet."

"Yes, I am."

"Then you would also be familiar with the history of her."

"Yes."

"There are ancient scrolls our people hold very sacred that tell of a history long forgotten about a curse the goddess placed on a young woman over three thousand years ago," he continues. "Imhotep was sentenced to suffer the Hom Dai and buried under the city of Hamunaptra but our scrolls tell of a young woman who was also taken and cursed as a weapon for the gods. She would be reincarnated with each generation in case the creature was awakened but would not awaken herself unless he was released."

Everyone in the room turns to Kat and she squirms uneasily under their gazes.

"And you think…my sister…is this reincarnation?" Rick scoffs.

"I had that same reaction, trust me," Kat raises an eyebrow at him with a weak smile.

"And you believe them now?!"

She glances up at Ardeth briefly, "He told me…about what happened to me…back at Hamunaptra. He said that I…changed. I changed into…something…" Kat's voice trails off as the curator's words and Ardeth's explanations echo through her mind, and her eyes stare off at nothing while memories of the pain and reaction she experienced towards the mummy play over and over in her head, "Rick, he said I turned into something that stood up to that mummy. Something that attacked him and _injured_ him. According to these guys, no mortal weapon can harm this guy, but yet I _did_."

Rick stares at her and she stares back, finally swallowing again down her dry throat.

"I don't know if I'm cursed or possessed…or what, but…" Kat shakes her head and sits back in the chair as she tightens the blanket around her. "I don't know. All I'm sure of is that whatever's wrong with me, it won't let me eat, drink, or sleep at all."

"So…" Rick slowly speaks up after a long moment of studying her, "No water?"

She shakes her head with a half-hearted smile, "Tastes like fuel."

"No food?"

"Mr. Terence here tried to give me an apple earlier and it turned to sand in my mouth."

"You can't even sleep?" Evie steps in.

"Something keeps it away every time I try," she shakes her head again.

The room goes silent again, the tension thickening as Evie paces back and forth across the room. Rick sits forward on his knees, folding his hands together and looking over at his sister, "How're you feeling? You're alright?"

Kat moves her eyes to his and smile, feeling a shiver coming on again, "Yeah, just a little cold."

"So…you believe all this…?"

Her gaze falls again for a long moment before she just shrugs, "I don't have a logical explanation for any of this yet, Rick. I'm just as confused as…you are…" Her toes start curling as her body suddenly gets colder and the shivers worsen. Kat draws her knees up to her chest and wraps the blanket around her legs, tucking her head as another spell comes over her. Rick stands up in alarm but stops when Ardeth abruptly grabs another blanket from its position hanging on the wall and drapes it over her shoulders.

Evie goes to rub Kat's shoulder, glancing worriedly at Rick.

"We've got to finish this guy off before this gets any worse," Rick demands as he turns to the curator. "What do we do?"

"We must stop him before he can fully regenerate," Terence answers.

"Yeah, and you know how he gets himself fully regenerated?" Mr. Daniels speaks up in obvious frustration.

"By killin' everyone who opened that chest," Mr. Henderson adds.

"And suckin' 'em dry! That's how!"

Kat glares at Mr. Daniels through the quaking of her body in annoyance. The American had always been obnoxiously loud, but now that he knows his life's in danger that irritating little traits seems to have gotten worse. She can feel Ardeth's hand lingering on her left shoulder tighten a little before lifting away…she tries to ignore the colder feeling left behind.

"Jonathan, will you stop playing with that?!" Evie's sudden outburst makes Kat jump a little and look over her left shoulder past Ardeth. Jonathan has made himself comfortable in the replica of a chariot used by some Pharaoh back in ancient times and is fiddling with a copy of an Egyptian bow.

When she turns back around, Kat notices that Evie has faced the museum curator head on, "When I saw him alive at Hamunaptra, he called me…Anck-su-namun."

Terence and Ardeth's eyes meet in shock.

"And then just now in Mr. Burn's quarters h-he tried to kiss me," Evie finishes, obviously putt off by the tense exchange.

Kat can feel a tugging at the back of her head again… _Why does that name sound so familiar…?_

"It was because of his love for Anck-su-namun that he was cursed," the curator explains. "Apparently even after three thousand years…"

"He's still in love with her," Ardeth finished.

"Yes, well, that's very romantic but what has it got to do with me?" Evie asks.

"Perhaps he will once again try to raise her from the dead," Ardeth says to Terence, ignoring the woman's question completely.

"Yes," the curator agrees, "And it appears he's already chosen his human sacrifice." Together, he and Ardeth turn to look at Evie as her face pales in realization. Kat swallows nervously.

"Bad luck, ol' mum," Jonathan remarks to his sister.

"On the contrary," Terence Bay paces across the room to where Evie stands and pauses before her, "It may just give us the time we need to kill the creature."

Ardeth moves from Kat's side and she looks up at him curiously, noticing his gaze has glued to the ceiling. She looks up and her heart nearly stops in her chest. Through the skylight on the ceiling, the moon has begun to cover the sun, dimming the light significantly. Kat climbs shakily to her feet and stops behind Ardeth's shoulder to get a better look as well.

"We will need all the help we can get," the madjai chief states. "His powers are growing."

Everyone in the room stands to their feet as the sight in the sky captures their attention.

"And he stretch forth his hand towards the heavens, and there was darkness throughout the land of Egypt," Jonathan quotes from the Bible, sending a chill down Kat's spine that shakes her legs even worse. She gripes a handful of Ardeth's robe sleeve to keep herself steady. He doesn't shake her away.


	10. Chapter 9

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 9:**

"You sure you want to stay here?" Rick asks his sister who leans against the railing by the stairs. "You don't have to. I can-."

"Rick," Kat smiles warmly up at him, grabbing his hand that rests on her arm, "I'm fine. Really. Plus there are books here I found that have a lot of information about this curse stuff. The more I can find out, the better prepared we'll be when we face this mummy guy again. So don't worry about me; go get that Egyptology guy and keep him safe until I can get some more information."

She starts to push him gently towards the stairs where everyone else is beginning to descend and he stops abruptly, "Fine. One hour and I'm coming back."

Kat sighs and closes her eyes to calm herself, "Three."

"Two and that's as high as I'm going."

Kat glares at him but smiles regardless, "Okay, two hours. Go."

She watches him follow his friends back downstairs and towards the entrance. Her throat tightens as a wave of panic washes over her, "Rick."

He and Evie pause looking up at her.

"Be careful."

Rick nods and salutes her while Evie smiles at him, "Love you too."

"Evie," Kat calls again to stop the woman. "Look after him for me."

"I will."

The group leaves, the heavy door closing shut with a heavy, finalized _thud_ and the sound reverberates through her chest. Her smile all but immediately vanishes from her face as she stares at the door. Maybe she should've gone with them. Her brother has been known for his recklessness sometimes.

"He will return to you."

Kat turns to look over her left shoulder at Ardeth. He stands in the doorway to the room where their strategy meeting had been held not too long ago.

Taking a few easy strides towards her, he joins her at the railing to stare down at the door, "He loves you very much."

Kat follows his gaze back to the door with a small smile, "I know."

"Terence is ready when you are."

He turns to head back to the room and Kat spins, "Ardeth." The madjai's eyes find hers again and she swallows down her dry throat, "I wasn't able to finish my apology earlier. I really am-."

"My forgiveness has already been given."

Her breath stops in her chest.

"I should have been more understanding of your position; I was careless with my words."

"You only spoke the truth."

"I spoke it too harshly."

Kat opens her mouth to argue but snaps it shut again. Smiling, Kat walks to his side and pauses, "You're right, you did, but I responded back too harshly as well."

"You were upset-."

Kat grabs his arm to shut him up, trying not to notice the strength of it, "Let's just agree that words have way too much power than they should have." With that she lets go of his arm and holds out her hand to him.

He glances down at it and then up at her through his unusually dark lashes before placing his hand in hers, "Agreed."

His palm all but swallows hers and Kat can't help but enjoy the feeling of comfort that settles over her. Taking a deep breath, she shifts her gaze away from his when the moment starts to turn too intense for her to handle.

"Are you two coming?"

Kat jumps, jerking her hand back to grab the blanket and pull it back around her snuggly when the curator unexpectedly appears out of nowhere, "Sorry. We're coming right now."

"Of course," Ardeth replies just as rapidly. He steps away around the curator and into the room.

Terence turns back to Kat and raises an eyebrow at her in question. She shrugs, "W-what?"

"Of the many years I have known that boy, I have never once seen him so flustered," Terence smiles slightly as he turns to look at Ardeth who now stands at a table filled with books that have been brought up from the basement storeroom.

"W-what's…got him…flustered?" she asks, genuinely curious.

Terence throws her a look before ushering her inside. Once there, he joins Ardeth at the table on the opposite side and starts flipping through pages. Kat takes her place at the table as well and sighs in disgust down at all the stacks of records and files and manuscripts filling the tabletop.

"I always hated history," she grumbles.

"'Study the past to define the future'," Ardeth quotes.

Kat drops the book in her hands like a weight and stares at him in surprise, "You know Confucius?"

He meets her gaze with his own dark one, "Did you think me uneducated?"

She quickly shakes her head before hurriedly flipping through books to hide her mortification, "N-no. Not at all. Just surprised…is all I was going to say."

* * *

They file through book after book and all they seem to find is the same information over and over. The weapon was made by the gods Anubis, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Bastet as a shield for the whole of humanity. The weapon's sole purpose was to ensure the death of the high priest Imhotep should he ever be awakened. The curse on the weapon would allow the body to be sustained without sleep, food, or water to ensure there would be no need to distract it from its one task. The weapon was even given the ability to absorb all knowledge of war.

Kat wasn't too sure what that meant but Terence believes it meant that the weapon could adapt to the use of any weapon that it came upon. That theory has yet to be agreed with by all of them yet.

After about thirty minutes of reading they had all headed to another room downstairs filled with more books and started their research anew there until the clock somewhere in the building strikes the hour. Kat stretches out her arms above her head, restlessly.

 _One hour down. I wonder how Rick's doing…_ , she thinks. "I'm going to go stretch my legs and give my eyes a break."

Both of the men nod but don't give her much more of a response than that so she leaves them to their tireless studies and decides to take a walk down the hall. As she strolls, Kat rubs her sore neck and pulls the blanket higher up onto her shoulders. She'd give anything to run a hot bath and just soak for a few hours; that would really ease the tension in her shoulders. That or a good sparring session. She always felt better when she and Rick got into a good arm wrestling match.

Turning the corner, Kat heads up the two flights of stairs to the second story and then to her left where a huge round window decorates the wall. She leans against the wall and stares out up at the dark sky above. No stars twinkle tonight like they have been the last couple of nights; probably hiding away from the terror going on right now.

 _Rick, please be okay_ , she prays silently.

There's a loud thud that echoes from somewhere in the building but she pays it no mind. It's probably Terence dropping a book down a bit too heavily again from all the frustration; he's done it three times since they've started researching. Strangely enough, the thud is followed by strange humming that, minute by minute, slowly forms words as it gets closer to her location. Kat is about to investigate but notices movement below outside coming up the street towards the museum.

Her eyes widen in horror.

* * *

"Yes, well, according to legend, the black book that the Americans found at Hamunaptra is supposed to bring people back from the dead. Until now, it was a notion I was unwilling to believe," Evie discusses as they follow Ardeth and Terence up the marble stairs of the museum.

"Believe it, sister. That's what brought our buddy back to life," Rick grumbles sourly.

"Yes, and I'm thinking that if the black book can bring dead people to life then-."

"Then maybe the gold book can kill him," Rick finishes and glances at her.

She nods, catching his gaze, "That's the myth. Now we just have to find out where the gold book is hidden."

" **Rick.** "

Ardeth and Terence stop at the strange voice, followed by Rick and his crew as they all turn towards the large, circle window down the hall they had just passed. Kat stands there at it, staring out at something outside below her. The blanket has fallen to the floor around her feet and her body is still as stone.

Rick takes a step towards her slowly, eyes narrowing worriedly, "Kat?"

His sister slowly turns to look over her shoulder and they all freeze. Her emerald green eyes are spiraling, almost glowing like live wires, and her face is paler. She speaks again and her voice sounds off, " **We're running out of time.** "

She turns back to the window and they all go to stand beside her to find out what's going on. Ardeth steps up beside Kat but doesn't have a chance to ask if she's alright for the horrors he finds outside. A horde of people with torches and weapons are marching towards the museum chanting a name they all know too well.

"Imhotep…Imhotep…Imhotep…Imhotep…Imhotep."

"Last but not least, my favorite plague: boils and sores," Jonathan sighs in defeat.

"They have become his slaves," Ardeth stares down at the horde below of walking mind-controlled servants prepared to rip this place apart if they must to please their master. "So it has begun—the beginning of the end."

"Not quite yet it hasn't," Evie states positively.

Ardeth spies a large gap in the crowd, a circle of people huddled around a single form, and he narrows his gaze expectantly. It's the creature. Kat must've seen him as well because she suddenly hisses like a feral creature and spins around so suddenly to press her back against the wall beside the window that Ardeth jerks in surprise.

Her arms circle around her stomach and her fists tighten at her sides as her jaw clenches shut in agony. When her eyes open, the spiraling light in her emerald irises has gotten brighter, spinning faster as she gazes off down the hall, "If you've got a plan I suggest you get to it fast."

Evie nods at her before rushing quickly to the giant slab of polished black stone that stands a few paces away from the top of the stairs overlooking the floor below. Everyone follows suit and takes up look out positions by the banister as Evie and Terence start deciphering the hieroglyphics on the stone.

"According to Bembridge scholars, the golden book of Amun-Ra is located inside the statue of Anubis," Evie recalls as her fingers skim across the stone.

"That's where we found the black book," Mr. Daniels remarks.

"Exactly."

"Well, it looks like the old boys at Bembridge were mistaken," Jonathan adds.

"Yes, they mixed the books up, mixed up where they were buried, so if the black book was inside the statue of Anubis, the golden book must be inside…"

The banging on the front door finally does a number on the entrance and the horde breaks through into the museum, filling the hall downstairs almost instantly with screams and yells of the multitudes of people filing in angrily, torches blazing.

Rick, Daniels, and Ardeth all move to the banister opposite the stairs to look down below and Kat glances down with them.

"Come on, Evie, faster!" Jonathan urges his sister.

"Patience is a virtue," she hums anxiously as her eyes skim faster.

"Not right now it isn't!" Rick argues from beside his sister, Ardeth looking back impatiently as well from her opposite side.

"Uh…I think I'll go get the car started," Jonathan laughs nervously as he takes a peek at the roaring crowd tearing in from below.

Kat growls, making everyone jerk suddenly at the feral sound, and the girl doubles over for a split second before slamming the back of her head against the pillar she leans against by the banister, breathing heavily through her teeth, "Evie, I know patience is a virtue and all… **BUT HURRY UP!** "

Evie flinches back as the young woman's voice floods with angry power and her eyes tear open to reveal fully glowing green eyes. Before Kat can say anything else she flashes forward, flipping over the railing and freefalling to the floor below with a graceful flip of her body. When she lands, the marble floors split with a loud _crack_!

"What the hell…" Rick breathes as he and Ardeth look over the banister at his sister below.

Looking up from her crouch, her glowing green eyes target the mob moving in to attack her and she opens her mouth clad with fangs and growls out like a wild-cat.

Rick just stare speechlessly at the woman below, no longer his sister but something else. Ardeth glances up at him, wondering how he's taking the sight before him. The brother is pale and a sweat is breaking out on his forehead. He's not sure how much longer Rick will hold out.

"We must leave!" Ardeth orders as he spins back to Evie who is still skimming through the Egyptian writing on the stone.

"I've got it! The golden book of Amun-Ra is at Hamunaptra inside the statue of Horus!" Evie exclaims excitedly, practically glowing with pride. "Take that, Bembridge scholars!"

Ardeth grabs Rick by the arm and tries to move his stiff form but the man is frozen. "She is your sister," he says to Rick in an attempt to break him out of the horror of his sister's condition, "She is strong. She will stay alive until she finds you again. Until then, we must leave. Do not let her sacrifice be in vain."

"Sacrifice?!" Rick snaps as he glares at the madjai.

"She has taken it upon herself to buy us time to escape," Ardeth jerks on his arm. "If you die here, she will lose you and it will all be for nothing. Now go!"

Below, the young woman snarls again and brings to life the glowing green whips from her finger tips which slash forward and take out the line of people closing in on her from behind. They fly into the wall and slunk to the floor limply.

Whipping her head around, her glowing green eyes stare up at Rick from the floor below for only a split second and in that second he can almost swear he sees a small piece of his sister staring back at him. But the cat-like human creature jerks her eyes towards something across the room and takes off after it like a jaguar running down its prey. Rick finally lets Ardeth pull him away down the hall.


	11. Chapter 10

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 10:**

Kat isn't sure what was different about this time but when she was taken over by the curse, she remembers everything that happened. It was like she was floating outside of her body as she watched things transpire and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

She remembers everything—every light that went out. Apparently, the weapon didn't see humans who were under control of the creature as humans any longer. Each of their lights was snapped out of existence as if they were nothing more than simple candles.

Kat feels sick to her stomach just thinking back on it.

She faintly remembers fighting mind-controlled people left in right in one continuous mob down the street until sometime in the night the people came free from the spell and dropped unconsciously into the streets. After that, time seemed to blur over and it was hard to tell when from when. She remembers a lot of sand.

When her control over her body slowly began to return to her, toe by toe and finger by finger, Kat could feel herself sinking gradually back into her form. Her vision clears more and more until the poor state of her body hits her and she falls to the ground limply. For a long time she just lies there weakly as the winds of the desert whip over her and spray her with sand. It won't be long before it buries her alive; at this point in time, does she really care?

Kat tries not to remember the memories of the battle, all the deaths, but the recollections assault her without remorse.

Through the eyes of the weapon, all the lives she came across looked like simple forms of gray light that thrummed like heart beats. Each of those living lights turned red for a brief moment whenever the weapon struck them before dimming and going out as the physical body fell to the ground.

She curls in tighter around herself as her eyes begin to sting and tears spill from her eyes.

She killed people—innocent people. It wasn't their fault, they were being controlled.

As sobs shudder through her body, the sandy wind continues to wail and the sun scorches her skin from high in the sky. She lies there until her body can't take any more of the sweltering heat and she's forced to climb to her feet and start walking. Sometime during the fight, something must've happened to her shirt because it flutters around in the wind uselessly, barely hanging onto her body.

Eventually she just pulls it off over her head, her undershirt flapping in the wind, and lets it go to the gale that travels across the sands, leaving the baking sun to drive away the cold that begins to shiver through her system again as before.

She's not sure how long she walks on her unstable legs. Kat's not sure how many times she stumbles to the ground and gets back up. All she knows is that she finally climbs to the top of a sand dune and stops as her eyes scan the familiar horizon beyond.

 _Hamunaptra_ , Kat thinks. _How'd I get back?_

Swallowing hard against an even dryer throat, Kat heads across the sands to the city, grateful when the crumbling walls pass by her and shield her from the relentless winds. The first thing Kat spies are the camels. The Americans or diggers who didn't make it out alive from here on their last visit weren't able to ride those camels out again. So now they roam the ruins quietly plucking away at the stray blades of dry grass around the area.

One camel, a roughly familiar one, strolls up to her as she comes huddled up into the city and takes a gentle nibble out of her hair. Kat pulls away with a grin as she looks up at the beast in confusion, "Haven't you been trying to go at my heels all this time? Why the change of heart?"

The beast grumbles as it munches a mouth of grass but doesn't leave her side. Kat nudges its neck and motions for it to rejoin the heard to which it reluctantly agrees with a grunt. Left alone again, she lets her eyes scan the city and finds the entrance way to the temple down below. She pauses outside and stares grudgingly into the dark halls beyond.

Her eyes fall to her feet and notice the footprints leading in and confusion sets in. Surly during the time they've been gone, the winds would've swept in enough sand to wipe away all signs of stuff like this. Kat sets her shoulders and heads in.

Someone must be here.

* * *

The rocks tumble loudly as Rick and Ardeth man-handle them one by one in order to clear the obviously recent cave in made specifically to slow them down. Rick grits his teeth angrily as he tosses the stones to the side, each one he envisions as the head of the one he hates more than anyone at the moment.

Imhotep.

If the man hadn't turned all those people in the city in a zombie horde, Evie would still be by his side. If he hadn't turned evil those thousands of years ago, Kat would be safe, free, and happy. Now, his only living family is God only knows where suffering under some curse and the only woman he's possibly ever loved is held captive to be some sacrifice in an evil ritual.

He can't imagine how things can get any worse.

Then again, he's not the only one suffering. Rick's eyes shift to his right as he works to move the rocks away and studies Ardeth's dark skinned face. During the short time he's known the madjai, he watched him go from being a man he'd known he could never trust to a man who…

Well…he isn't quite sure.

One thing he does know is that Ardeth has grown a soft spot for his sister and Rick isn't sure if he likes it or not. Kat is someone who doesn't trust easily but when she does, it's with her whole heart. Ardeth is a madjai and if Rick has come to know anything about these warriors, it's that they will do anything to stop Imhotep. That includes putting their own lives…or others….at risk.

That could mean Kat if Rick doesn't do something about this infatuation quickly.

"Take those bigger stones first," Jonathan calls from behind them as he holds the torch. "Take them from the top otherwise the whole thing will cave in on us. Come on, put your backs into it."

Finally, Rick can't take much more of the man's bossy attitude and he spins around to glare daggers at him, Ardeth joining him angrily.

Jonathan grins sheepishly and backs off, "Yes, well, you got the idea. Chop, chop."

Rick and Ardeth turn back to the pile of stone and continue on in their work of moving the pile out of their way. For a second, Rick wonders if there could possibly be an easier way to get to Evie. Ardeth had assured him that this was the quickest way and that the cave in hadn't been there before so that only confirmed their belief that Imhotep had caused it to bar their path.

As if attacking them in the plane with a sandstorm wasn't harsh enough.

"Gents, you should come and have a look at this," Jonathan calls from behind them but they both ignore his beckoning. "AGH! AGH!"

Ardeth and Rick both leap out of their skins and spin around, each grabbing for their respective weapons. Rick glares at Jonathan who's flailing dramatically, "What?"

"MY ARM! MY ARM!"

Rick quickly goes to Jonathan's side and rips the man's shirt open off his shoulders just as some disgusting things comes crawling up under Jonathan's flesh to the top of his arm. "Whoa!" Rick gasps, "Hold him!"

"Do something, do something!" Jonathan wails urgently.

Ardeth steps behind Jonathan and grabs him sternly under the arm to keep him still while Rick whips out his knife and bares to blade to the puckered flesh where the bug is embedded.

"NOT THAT! NOT THAT!" Jonathan quickly argues when he spots the knife but Rick has already slipped the knife under his flesh and starts digging. A second later and with a flip of the blade, Rick flings the embedded scarab out from Jonathan's arm and across the room from them.

The bug lands with a quiet _poof_ on the sand, wiggles around a bit with a high pitched gurgle, before making a U-turn and scurrying back towards them hungrily. Rick pulls his gun, takes aim-.

 _SLASH! HIISSSSS!_

Out of the darkness of the hallway behind them, a blazing whip snaps out across the floor and splits the bug in half in the blink of an eye, leaving its carcass steaming from the heat sizzling off the beam of emerald light. The sound echoes through the halls around them like a ghostly scream.

They all turn to dark tunnel as Kat strides through…and yet doesn't. Her eyes are glowing bright green, no sign of his sister anywhere to be found in that gaze, and flooded with anger that might as well be as old as time. The weapon pauses in the middle of the room, paying the men no mind, and its gaze stops on the cave in blocking the path.

Growling like a vengeful feline, the weapon stretches out her hand and, like a breath, the sands beneath their feet start to move like snakes across the ground towards the pile of stones, slithering over them and into the crevices between each slate. A few seconds later, the weapon flicks her wrist and the stones fly across the room out of the way at her command and crash against the far wall as loud as lightning from a storm.

The weapons slips into the opening in the wall, leaving the men to stand there dumbfounded in her wake.

"W-wait," Rick breathes before hurrying after the weapon, snatching a torch up from the ground as he goes, "Wait! Kat!"

The opening becomes more and more narrows, forcing him to slide through sideways until he finally comes to the end of the tunnel beyond into a darkened room. He tosses the torch to the ground with his bag before squeezing through and jumping the short distance to the ground. He looks up and finds the warm light from the torch highlighting the fallen form of his unconscious sister.

"KAT!" Rick rushes to his sister's side without waiting for the others to catch up and gently rolls her over onto his bent knee so that she's sitting up a ways. "Kat? Katherine, answer me. Come on."

Kat groans and takes a deep breath before coughing. Her eyes flutter open and she looks up, "Yeah, I can…hear you."

Rick sighs heavily in relief and wraps his arms around her, rocking her gently for a moment in silence. Jonathan and Ardeth wait patiently a few paces off for the siblings to reunite. Kat is the first to break the silence.

"R-Rick….Rick, I love you, but I need to breathe," she hisses. Rick loosens his hold and stares down at her.

"You alright? How do you feel?"

"Honestly-."

"Yes, honestly!"

Kat pokes him in the side for cutting her off, "Let me finish, idiot. I was going to say, honestly I've had better days and that I feel worse each time I come out of the daze this curse puts me under."

"How'd you get here?" Jonathan asks while Rick helps his sister to her feet and holding her up.

"I think…I walked…or ran…"

"Across the desert…?" Rick gawks.

Kat nods slowly, "Time's kind of funny when I go under. I remember…I remember more of what happened this time. I saw myself fighting but I couldn't control my body. It was like I was floating outside of myself." Her words come to a dead stop as she stares down at her feet, her face pales drastically, "I remember…all the people…that I killed."

No one responds except for Rick who tightens his grip gently on her shoulder, "They weren't people anymore-."

"Yes they were," Kat responds in a drained voice. "I could see the light inside of them, their souls. I could see those lights vanish as they died. They were innocent people, Rick."

"You weren't yourself," he tells her.

"Was I?" Kat snaps, turning to glare up at him, "It may not have been me, Rick, but it was done by my hand." Breathing heavy, she pulls away out of her brother's grip and turns away, "I don't even…know if I'm me anymore."

"We will end this curse," Ardeth states suddenly.

Unable to meet his gaze, Kat shakes her head and pulls out the last bit of determination she can find inside of her, "Forget it. Let's just get this over and done with."

She reaches for the knife tucked at the back of her brother's waist and pulls it out of the holster. Before he can say anything, she aims it and hurls it through the air towards a round, familiar object sitting quietly atop a tower; a beam of light from the roof highlights it as the knife clashes against the metal loudly. Across the way, the Egyptian mirror spins and reflects the beam through the room, lighting it up for all to see. Almost instantly, the darkness is replaced by a golden glare as the light reflects off the mountains and mountains of gold before them.

They gaze out across it, speechless.

Kat starts down the stairs first and the guys follow a bit more slowly. Between the statues of gold, the columns of gold, the pottery of gold, or just the huge mounds of golden coins piled up, Kat can't tell a difference between any of the ancient artifacts since they all bare the same color.

It's just…gold.

"Can you see…?" Jonathan whispers through his shock.

"Yeah," Rick answers his unfinished sentence.

"Can you believe…?"

"Yeah."

"Can we just…"

"No."

Kat scoffs, picking up her pace as her eyes spy a golden bladed sword displayed on a golden stand a few feet away, "Well he may not but I'm getting something out of all this chaos."

Her hands lift the sword deftly off the golden stand and lower it to her level. Her hand grips the hilt, fitting it into her palm, before spinning it by her shoulder; it gives off a hum through the air.

"And…where did you learn to use a sword like that?" Rick asks, narrowing his gaze at his sister.

Kat lifts her eyes to his and the emerald irises are spinning brightly again.

"Gotcha," he nods.

Gurgles and growls mumble behind them and Kat whips her eyes towards the walkway nearby as the ground breaks open and a decaying mummy starts crawling from out of the sand, and another breaks loose from the floor behind Ardeth and he spins towards it with his gun raised at the ready, and yet another from behind Jonathan across the room. The team back towards each other, standing back to back as the creatures close in on them.

"Who the hell are these guys?" Rick asks as more mummies begin to crawl out of the ground.

"Priests," Ardeth explains. "Imhotep's priests."

As if the name triggers it, Kat's eyes begin to glow green and a cat-like growl tears out from behind her fangs as the weapon takes hold of her again. Rick glances over his shoulder at his sister warily and watches the weapon flip the sword expertly in her hand.

"Alright then," he states in contentment.

Accepting that as a good to go, the men start firing their gun and the weapon races forward with her sword raised. Mummies go down left and right, one by one, but the mummies crawling from the ground just replace each of their fallen with two more. Rick grabs Jonathan by the back of his shirt collar and starts pulling him back as they retreat towards the door at the far end of the treasure room.

The weapon spins, raises her hand and the ground splits open with a roar, swallowing the mummified priests into the dark depths below. Rick and Ardeth exchange a worried look; the weapon is getting stronger and Kat was getting weaker.

Only death could possibly follow at this point, but who's?

They keep retreating down the close quarters of a tunnelway and into another large room where Jonathan has brought the torch. The glowing eyes of the weapon vanish suddenly before the light of the torch can touch her and Kat slump to her knees. Breathing heavily, she shakes her head and looks back over her shoulder as Rick and Ardeth back into the room, continuously letting off rounds at the countless mummies that file down the hall after them.

Quickly climbing to her feet, Kat brings the sword in her hand with her and stops a step behind the two men just as Rick pulls out a stick of dynamite. She gasps and snatches it out of his hand before he can light it, "I thought we had this discussion? You and explosives don't mix."

Kat takes the match from her brother and strikes it against the heel of her boot as Rick and Ardeth take a step back. With a long toss, the dynamite bounces off the walls of the hall and lands on the sandy floor. Spinning on her heels in a panic, Kat dashes after the others who take cover and Ardeth grabs her by the belt as she skids by too far and pulls her down with him as they all duck behind the base of the statue.

The explosion erupts not a second later. Somehow landing in the crook of Ardeth's arm, Kat ducks her head as Ardeth curls over her to shield their heads from the debris that follows. A few pieces of stone tumble and land on them all the same but nothing dangerous.

Kat turns her head to cough only to come face to face with Ardeth, so close she can see every detail of his dark eyes. Their labored breathes mingle in the small space between them and she can almost taste him on her tongue—she swallows.

"Alright, guys," Rick groans. "Let's get diggin'."

Ardeth and Kat blink and quickly sit up away from each other. Rick and Jonathan jump at their abruptness.

"What's up with you?" Rick demands at his sister who jumps to her feet and wipes away the sand from her clothes. "And why is your face so red?"

Kat's eyes widen in horror at her brother's words, glancing briefly at Ardeth before rushing away, but not before she snatches Rick's weapons bag in the process. She unrolls it and starts picking through his very limited knife collection, "We're in a hurry, right? Get digging!"

Rick and Jonathan do just that, pulling out pry bars and shovels as they start banging away at the statue's base, leaving Kat and Ardeth to guard the entry and exit ways so they can work.

Kat keeps her back to Ardeth, staying crouched as she tucks away as many knives as she can on her person; which is hard considering she's lost most of her sheaths over the last few days. Even with the work to distract her, it doesn't help in the slightest. She's still hyper aware of Ardeth being **right there**. Her heart hammers in her chest against her will and she prays that no one can hear it down in these halls where even the slightest sound echoes like a roar.

As she gazes down, Kat realizes terrifyingly that there are no knives left for her to get. She's left with only move left and that's to stand and keep a proper look out. Just the thought makes her stomach flip anxiously. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she releases it slowly and stands to her feet, taking a post next to Ardeth. She licks her lips and keeps her gaze locked on the doorway in front of them.

Every hair on her arms is raised nervously even though he's three feet away.

"You seem nervous."

Kat stops breathing, "Nervous? Me? No. Just ready for all this to be over and done with."

Ardeth pauses in his work loading the gun in his hands, glancing down at her, "I see."

"Yep."

Another long silence and Kat breathes.

"What will you do when all this is finally done?"

She sucks in her breath again and bores her eyes into the dark wall at the end of the hall beyond, "If the curse doesn't kill me? …Uh…..No idea."

"I see."

"You see what?" Kat blurts out against her will. She quickly bites her lip, cursing herself. Ardeth stares at her at her outburst. "What I meant to say was…uh… Oh, forget it. I'm not good at this stuff!" Kat drops to a knee again, grabs the sharpening block from her brother's bag and starts running it along the sword blade in her hand to clean off the gunk from the mummies the weapon had fought in the treasure chamber.

They both fall into a nervous silence again, each one tending to their own weapons rigidly. Kat fights off a shiver bewildered as to how she can be so cold when she feels like she's on fire; she swallows again.

Even knowing this she doesn't understand why she's acting so insane. Sure she's attracted to the guy—who wouldn't be?—but it's not like she **likes** the man. Her heart continues to hammer in her chest, something it's done since meeting him, and Kat wonders about that. Looking back over the time she's spent here, meeting him and fighting with him has been different from anything she's experienced. She's liked a few guys before and sparred with them on occasion but none of them left her breathless or her heart hammering the way it does now.

Could she actually have grown feelings for him without knowing it? There's no way. Kat has always been careful not to let that happen…

"Katherine."

Her heart all but explodes in her chest. When has he ever said her name like that? Or said it at all? God, it sounded almost perfect coming from him. Kat shuts her eyes tightly, fearing his next words as she holds her breath.

"There is a place that I know of that may have answers you seek. There are people there who may be able to help you."

Kat opens her eyes slowly, staring down at the blade in her hand, "T-Thank you. I'd…appreciate that…though, I'm sure I'd need a map to get there."

"I would take you," he answers, his words stop her heart in her chest. "That is, if you'd wish the aid."

Kat can't help it. She turns her eyes up at him to search his face for a hidden meaning, but his eyes are fixated on the hallway beyond. She opens her mouth to answer, practically tasting the words on her tongue.

"Gurrrrrgraaaaa…"

Kat leaps to her feet as the shadows move at the end of the hall.

"Damn, these guys just don't quit, do they?!" Rick grunts from his work on the stone face of the statue.

Ardeth cocks the gun and the sharp sound echoes, "Keep digging."

Kat watches him move closer towards the doorway and aims for the end of the hall as he readies to shoot the first mummy to expose itself from around the corner. She's not sure what to do, thoughts swirling in her head chaotically.

She can't really be of much help to Ardeth at the doorway, her brother and Jonathan are just pulling the box free from under the statue so they have that covered, and she's just standing here uselessly.

Ardeth's gun starts going off as the mummies close in. Shots fill the room and hurt her ears.

"The book of Amun-Ra," Jonathan suddenly states in awe as they open the box and unwrap the golden book inside. The shots abruptly ceasefire and they all look up in alarm—no more ammo.

Ardeth turns back to look at them all, "Save the girl. Kill the creature."

Kat's blood runs cold in her system. No, he wouldn't…

Their eyes lock briefly for a moment and then he turns away from her and rushes the mummies closing in down the hall with a war cry. The mummies surround him almost instantly as he fights to keep them at bay. Kat is taking a step forward to rush in after him, but a crumbling noise makes her stop.

Back in the opposite direction, the doorway they had collapsed with the dynamite is starting to shift. A mummified hand breaks through the rubble.

"They're digging through!" Jonathan exclaims.

The top part of the rubble tears away and a hole is formed but quickly filled as the mummy starts crawling through. Kat can feel the weapon inside begin to take over again and her heart shudders in her chest.

"Rick," she calls to him. As their eyes meet she smiles, "I'll keep them off of you but you need to hurry. I don't know how much time I got left."

"What-?" he takes her by the arm but she gently pushes him away.

"Trust me. Get to Evie and get out," Kat tells him. "I may not be able to come out of the change this time to make sure you do but I know you'll do the right thing."

"Wait, KATHERINE!"

Kat tears away from him, eyes locking on the mummies breaking through the rubble, and feels the vicious power of the weapon consumer her in anger as it takes control.


	12. Chapter 11

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 11:**

A madjai is sworn at manhood to do anything in his power to stop the high priest Imhotep from rising and destroying the world. It is his oath to risk anything and everything to stop the creature.

Even give his own life.

Ardeth had gladly taken the oath as a young man, wished for no higher honor. But things have changed since his boyhood. He hadn't expected for his heart to be swayed, to be weakened.

 _Katherine O'Connell_.

Ardeth hadn't wanted to leave, hadn't wanted to give his life at the moment their eyes had locked. He had wanted to stay by her side and try to save her from the curse eating her alive from the inside out. But as the mummies had closed in, he had wanted nothing more in his life but to protect her and keep her safe.

Her face had gone pale at his words, something he didn't understand. Did his words frighten her? Was she just terrified that the creatures were closing in? Or was she just afraid of the growing fact that the curse was killing her?

Ardeth wanted to stay and demand the answers out of her but his need to defend her was stronger. He was a madjai at heart after all.

He made his way free of the undead priests and back down the cluster of hallways in an attempt to find more open grounds so he could defend himself more properly against the creatures that swamped him. Somehow, Ardeth made it back to the treasure room and was finally free to fight the creatures better. He threw away the gun and unsheathes his sword with a silent _ring_. The mummy horde continues to build around him as he cuts them down one by one.

What he wouldn't give to have his madjai brothers with him at his sides. They were taught to fight as one and protect each other; being alone in a fight has never felt right to him.

A mummy behind him explodes suddenly and he spins around in surprise. A blazing green whip is tearing through the air left and right at blinding speeds and the mummies sear apart with hisses and screams. His eyes find the weapon at the top of the stairs leading out of the treasure room, skin paler than ever and eyes glowing brighter than they ever have. When all of the creatures nearest to her have been disposed of, the weapon whisks her head around towards something that catches her attention and races off into the darkness after it with a cat-like growl.

Ardeth dodges around the remaining mummies and climbs the stairs after her. The weapon had reached the halls before him and has disappeared from his view, forcing him to try and track her by the footprints left in the sand along the floor. Hallway after hallway he turns, slashing through mummies that get too close in the process until he finally trips through a doorway and into another room, this one free of sand on the floor.

He quickly rolls into a crouch, ready to defend himself against the creatures close behind him, but the mummies back away from the room as if afraid.

They vanish almost as quickly as they had come.

Ardeth spins around…to meet the tip of a blade to his face. He gazes up into the glowing eyes of the weapon, slowly standing to his full height and raising his hands in surrender. The weapon snarls low, lips curling back to expose her teeth.

 _This is not right_ , Ardeth thinks. _The weapon protects mankind. Why does she turn her blade on me?_

Bringing her snarl to a close as if reading his thoughts, the weapon keeps the blade aimed directly in his face.

" _I fight against the high priest Imhotep_ ," Ardeth states in his language. " _We are on the same side._ "

" _ **FOOL!**_ " the weapon snarls. Ardeth drops to one knee from the sheer forces of power from the weapon's voice, so much like Kat's and yet so foreign. She draws back her sword but he refuses to move even though the weapon steps away from him. He follows her with his gaze as she approaches the far wall of the room to an Egyptian painting of a woman holding a spear to a priest's chest.

Ardeth realizes what he's seeing. It's a depiction of the legendary fight between the weapon and Imhotep; prophesied over three thousand years ago. The weapon goes to wall and strokes her fingers across it gingerly in an almost loving fashion and Ardeth narrows his gaze.

He dares to stand again and the weapon glances back at him briefly before placing her hand flat against the painting. Startlingly, the images across the wall begin to move on their own. The picture of the woman moves and changes, her eyes becoming human and the marks vanishing off her arms and throat as she returns to the human before the curse was brought about. This woman was known only in record as a young Egyptian known as Bastet. The picture of Bastet goes to embrace the high priest Imhotep tightly. They pull away to gaze at each other lovingly before he turns away from her and moves across the wall to a different woman with long, dark hair and dark eyes. He kisses her tenderly before they both turn away towards a man dressed clearly as a Pharaoh and they kill him together. Back on the previous wall, the woman Bastet grabs her head and drops to her knees as she screams silently in agonizing shame at Imhotep's crime. A second later Bastet pulls out a dagger and holds it over her chest, ready to end her life, when a group of men move in to stop her. The men bare marks on their faces similar to Ardeth's and he realizes that these were the madjai of old. The Pharaoh's bodyguards drag Bastet off across the wall to where five beings of light await them to kill Bastet's mortal form and bring her back as an immortal weapon of death.

Ardeth covers his eyes as a light engulfs the room and a piercing sound stabs his ears painfully. When it all fades away, he looks back to find the room back to the way it originally was, only this time the paintings on the wall remain motionless.

" _ **IT WAS YOU WHO DID THIS TO ME.**_ "

Ardeth's eyes lock with the glowing green gaze of the weapon's as she turns to face him.

" _ **IT WAS THE MADJAI WHO BROUGHT ME TO MY DEATH AND LEFT ME TO BECOME A SLAVE!**_ " the weapon shrieks as she advances angrily towards Ardeth, sword gripped firmly in hand. She lifts it high and brings it down at his head but he blocks it with his own. The strength from the weapon drives her sword down against his own and he's forced onto his back like a dog in submission. " _ **MY LIFE IS NO LONGER MY OWN! SO I WILL TAKE YOURS AS PAYMENT!**_ "

Ardeth was taught the language of Egyptian at a young age so he can pick up most of what the weapon is saying. Enough to defend himself if he must, " _You are sworn to be a shield for mankind; to defeat Imhotep so that they will not be destroyed in his wake. I swore the same oath-!_ "

" _ **I SWORE NO OATH!**_ " the weapon snarls in Egyptian. " _ **I WAS CURSED TO THIS OATH! I DID NOT WANT IT!**_ "

" _Neither does Katherine!_ " he grunts back in his language as he struggles to keep her sword blade from embedding into his face.

" _ **I DID NOT WANT IT!**_ " the weapon repeats.

Ardeth's breath catches in his throat as he realizes the truth. The weapon isn't a curse inside of Katherine—the weapon is Katherine. Katherine is the weapon. They are one in the same; a reincarnation reborn into a new body in a new time. This is Katherine; a part of her that has never been awakened and now has been refused to be acknowledged.

He's fighting the woman he's come to care so much for. As this truth settles into his heart, Ardeth shoves against the weapon's sword with one last burst of strength only to have her hurl his away and leaves him unarmed. Ardeth drops his arms to the ground on either side of him and leaves his chest open for her to attack willingly.

" _I swore an oath to do everything in my power to stop Imhotep from destroying the world, from destroying mankind. That includes Katherine. If my death will bring you any peace, I give it freely_ ," he tells her in his language. The weapon snarls at his words, lifts her sword back with her right arm, and brings it down at him in a flash. Ardeth closes his eyes softly.


	13. Chapter 12

_(DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Except my character Katherine, of course.)_

 _-Ravyne_

* * *

 **Death Becomes Her**

 **Chapter 12:**

Gasping, Ardeth opens his eyes and turns his head to the left slightly to where the sword blade has buried into the ground by his head. He sighs heavily in relief.

"AGH!"

The weapon stumbles back away from him, grabbing her head in agony as liquid darkness begins to float around her quivering body. Alarmed, Ardeth sits up as he watches the Egyptian hieroglyphs around her wrists and up her arms begin to peel off one by one and join the liquefied darkness drifting into the air above her. With another terrifying scream, the weapon lifts her head, squeezing her eyes shut and a bright green light explodes from her.

Ardeth ducks to the ground, covering his head as the emerald fires burn over him heatedly, singing the hems of his robes. It passes slowly and he turns over cautiously.

Kat has fallen to her knees, breathing heavily out of her gapping mouth, and she stares down at her arms in wonder. The marks are gone, the color has returned to her tanned skin. Her green eyes are starting to water around the edges as she comprehends what's going on.

Her eyes find his a second later and he breathes, "The creature. He's been destroyed."

Kat's nods but then her eyes widen more, "Rick."

The temple erupts into quakes around them, splitting the floor open between them, and they climb shakily to their feet.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Kat yells over the noise.

"In order to protect the riches of Egypt, the Pharaoh's rigged the city to bury beneath the sands whenever a trigger was set," Ardeth calls back.

"Seriously?!"

He takes her hand, helping her across the gap in the floor, and together they race through the halls of the temple. Left and right they turn, lungs heaving in a panic as columns and walls and ceilings begin to crumble around them. They finally reach the entrance and Kat pulls him to a stop.

"Wait, my brother's still in there," she demands. They both stare back into the disintegrating temple around them.

"We will have to find another way around," Ardeth tells her.

"No."

His eyes spin to hers.

She shakes her head and takes a breath, "I know my brother. I trust him; he's too stubborn to die. Come on!"

This time Kat takes his hand and pulls him along after her as they maneuver their way out of the ruined city of Hamunaptra as it sinks underground. They pass through the walls of the main gate and into the desert beyond, avoiding the camels that stampede to safety around them. They skid to a stop in the sand and look back over the chaos disrupting the city.

Three forms are running towards them through the dust.

"RICK!" Kat screams. A few moments later, her brother, Jonathan, and Evie are racing up to them and Kat swings her arms around her brother's torso tightly. They all turn back to watch in awe as the city upturns itself and vanishes beneath the sands.

Silence ensues for a long time as they all just stand there and catch their breaths. It's finally over; the whole lot of nonsense. They all made it. They're all alive.

After a long moment, Ardeth reaches forward and drops a hand on Jonathan's shoulder, making everyone jump in alarm when the poor man screams.

Ardeth fights back a smile.

"Agh! Thank you," Jonathan snaps, placing a hand over his wounded shoulder dramatically, "Thank you very much!"

"You have earned the respect and gratitude of me and my people," Ardeth tells him with a smile.

Rick, Evie, and Kat smile at Jonathan who quickly rethinks his outburst and nods towards the madjai chief, "Uh…Yes, well…It was nothing."

"May Allah smile upon you always," Ardeth kisses his thumb before touching his forehead in the tradition blessing, bidding them all farewell.

Jonathan tries to return the gesture but messes it up terribly, "And…yourself."

With a parting smile to them all, eyes lingering on Kat, he grabs the reins of a nearby saddled camel and climbs up onto its back. He turns the beast out to the desert and rides off towards the southern horizon.

"Stay out of trouble," Rick calls with a wave.

Jonathan flaps a lazy wave after him as well before grumbling, "He's just…leaving us here." He turns towards what was left of the destroyed city and his face falls even further in defeat, "Well, I guess we go home empty handed…again."

"I wouldn't say that."

Kat glances over at her brother and a slow smile forms on her lips as he stares down at Evie, captures her gaze with his and then leans down to kiss her ever so gently. Kat's smile widens as Jonathan groans in disgust and goes to try and kiss a camel sarcastically, only to be growled at with a mouth full of smelly breath.

Her eyes shift off to the south at Ardeth's disappearing figure and her heart drops in her chest, recalling his words to her back in the temple.

" _There is a place that I know of that may have answers you seek. There are people there who may be able to help you. I would take you, that is, if you'd wish the aid._ "

Would.

He had said 'would'.

Not 'will'. He hadn't sworn an oath.

Kat sighs. He had no obligation and gave no promise to help her. He had only said 'would'.

"Hey, Kat," Rick calls. She blinks up at her brother as he steps up beside her and wraps an arm over her shoulder. His eyes gaze off to the south curiously, "Watcha looking at?"

"Nothing," Kat answers quickly, the words sitting bitterly on her tongue.

"Okay, then. What are you looking for?"

"Nothing," she repeats, her eyes narrowing up at his teasing tone.

"Okay." He pauses for a long moment and they both stand there, facing south, and listening to the wind. Kat tries to enjoy the silence, even as she watches a piece of her heart vanish off into the distance, until her brother opens his loud mouth again, "What are you waiting for?"

"What are you getting at?" Kat shoves his arm off of her shoulder and glares at him.

"I know you've got a thing for that guy," Rick finally spills out.

"No, I don't."

"Yeah, you do. I know you better than that."

"Obviously you don't," she crosses her arms defiantly and stares off into the south horizon again. Ardeth can hardly be seen anymore.

"Oh, yes, I do," Rick puts his arm back over her shoulders and sighs, "Look, I heard what the guy offered to you while we were digging. He wanted to help you find a way to get rid of this curse and find you some answers-."

"He was just trying to help," Kat answers, feeling the words cut her heart to pieces.

"And I admit, the guy surprised me by wanting to help you," Rick pauses again and moves to take her hand in his, pushing back her sleeve to reveal her thick leather bracelet on her right arm but otherwise clean flesh; the cursed marks are truly gone. "Though it seems that you've broken the curse yourself."

"Yeah."

"But, like I said, I know you all too well," he continues. "You'll dig into any record you can find and try to figure out all that you can about this curse and why it happened to you."

"You bet I will," Kat nods, crossing her arms again and shifting her gaze back out to the sands to find Ardeth's figure again. He's nowhere to be seen. Her heart stops in her chest.

"So I ask again."

Kat turns to look at her brother in confusion as he walks off a few paces, grabs a saddled camel by the reins, and leads it back over to her, holding out the lead rope with a smile.

"What are you waiting for?" he finishes.

Kat gazes down at his hand holding out the lead rope to her and then up to his face. There's no sign of over protection or mistrust or anger or anything that says he wants to stop her or hold her back. Kat's answering smile is slow and so full of joy that she leaps into her brother's arms and he swings her around one time like when they were kids before setting her down.

"Don't forget to write this time," Rick comments, helping her up into the saddle.

"Wouldn't dream of it!" she grins down at him. Her eyes shift to Evie and then back to her brother teasingly, "Don't forget to send me a wedding invitation."

The smiles on their faces fall clean off in apprehension as Kat laughs, pushing the camel into a run across the desert.

Kat never could run a camel.

* * *

It took her nearly ten minutes before she even caught a glimpse of a sign that there was anyone else out in this desert but her. Then the speck of black in the distance made her push the camel faster on ahead. The speck grew into a camel and rider, then into Ardeth's robes and the camel's long neck.

"Hey!"

Ardeth turns his head and quickly pulls his camel to a stop so the rider behind him can catch up.

She pulls her camel to a halt as well and it swings its head around to nip at her ankle angrily, "Don't even think about it, flea-bag."

"You are pulling too hard on her reins," Ardeth eyes her.

"How else am I supposed to stop her then?" Kat rolls her eyes at him.

"Gently," Ardeth reaches over and grabs the reins of the camel in front of her hands, his fingers brushing over hers, and barely pulls back. The camel grunts but otherwise comes to a final stop. "She is not a horse."

Kat shifts her eyes to his dark ones and sighs, "Okay, so that's one more thing you'll have to teach me on the way to this library of yours."

Ardeth narrows his eyes, "You wish for me to take you…?"

"You said you would," Kat responds before quickly looking away from his intense gaze, fiddling with the frayed ends of the material covering the saddle, "Unless you're needed elsewhere. I know your tribe probably needs you more than me. You can just point me in the direction of the library or lend me a map, then I could-."

"You rant when you are nervous."

"What?" she squeaks.

"There are men in my tribe who can handle things while I am away," Ardeth turns his camel to the left and begins to ride off.

"Where are you going?" Kat calls after him.

Ardeth looks back over his shoulder, "The library is to the east. Come."

With a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, Kat turns her camel and follows after him. The beast jerks its head and tries to bite at her ankles again with a growl.

"Gently," he reminds her.

Kat groan in frustration, "Can't we just get horses at our next stop?"

"You would not make it across the desert," he chuckles.

"Oh, but that's what I got you for," she smiles softly, feeling the truth of the words settle into the depths of her heart.

* * *

Author's Note:

 _So I hope you all enjoyed. Katt B. helped me out where she could with editing so props to her as well._

 _Also, I know I didn't really go into much of the Weapon's background but I'm saving that for the sequel...Dun-dun-dun!...Maybe...possibly. I haven't decided yet._

 _Please review if you can spare the moment. I love critiques!_

 _Have a great day!_

 _-Ravyne_


	14. Chapter 13

**Death Becomes Her**

 **UPDATE:**

 _So I know this isn't exactly a chapter BUT this does help in the continuation of the story so by all accounts it actually is a chapter. I just wanted to let all "Death Becomes Her" readers that the sequel is up and finished. I just uploaded the whole story tonight. The title is "Life Forsakes Her" in case you have trouble finding for it...or you can just go to our profile page and look for it there. Thanks a bunch to you all and I hope to see you in the sequel!_

 _Thanks,_

 _Ravyne_


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